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H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-Z AA ? 




The Commanding Officer 

Col. John Bo Rose, the dynamic force that made the 
Provisional Regiment what it was. 



First 



H-A-L-TTI-WHA-ZAA? 



Being a History 

of 
THE FIRST PROVISIONAL REGIMENT 

and 
THE ANSWER OF A STATE MILITANT 

to 
THE THREAT OF BERLIN 



Edited and Compiled by 
CAPT. T. R. HUTTON 



Published Under the Auspices of 

The Publication Committee of 

THE AQUEDUCT GUARD CITIZENS' COMMITTEE 

HON. ALTON B. PARKER JAMES SPEYER DAVID T. DAVIS 

CAPT. CHARLES W. BALDWIN, Chaplain 






Copyright, 19 19. by 
The^Aqueduct Guard Citizens Committee 



'C1.A536234 



m 2\ >9>'^ 



ACKNOWLEDGMENT 

To the Commanding Officer of the First Provisional Regiment, 
and to the members of staff and Hne who have assisted in the 
furnishing of material for the compilation of this volume, the 
Editor expresses his thanks. To Captain Henry D. Brandyce of 
the Eighth Coast Artillery Corps, New York Guard, w^ho gave 
much of his time to the preparation of the sectional maps of the 
First Provisional Line; to Frank J. Burke of the United States 
Secret Service; to the Aqueduct Citizens' Committee which made 
its publication possible; and to the employees of the Adjutant's 
office for their hearty co-operation, there is expressed the sincere 
appreciation of one who has been permitted to chronicle the his- 
tor}^ of the Regiment. 




Capt. 1st Infantry, Adjutant. 



Headquarters 
Camp Westcott, 
ossining, n. y. 
February 12, IQIQ 



*i 



CONTENTS 

page- 
Introduction xiil 

Preface xv 

— "And All Is Well" xvii 

PART I 

The Heart of the World r 

Mobilization 15 

I. — Preparation 15 

11. — Concentration 26 

III. — Distribution 38 

IV. — Consummation 42 

V. — Organization 59 

September 68 

October 75 

November 81 

December 86 

January, 1918 94 

February, '' 97 

March, " 100 

April, " 104 

May, " 106 

June, " 112 

July, " . . ' 114 

August, " 119 

September. "...., , 127 

October, " 133 

November, " 136 

Midwood 142 

PART II 

The Line Impregnable 145 

Equipment 209 

The Trail of the Octopus 216 

Housing 224 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 



Paper-work of the Regiment 234 

Dogs of the Regiment 263 

Pay Problems 272 

The Legal Phase 278 

Morale 290 

I. — Religious Activities 290 

II. — Recreational 297 

III. — Athletics 323 

Transportation and Supplies 332 

I. — The Three Kinds 332 

11. — Transportation Lines 341 

III. — Second Battalion Supply Problems 344 

Literature of the Regiment 348 

Health 373 

Demobilization 400 

In Memoriam 416 

Appendix I 441 

Appendix II 457 

Appendix III 479 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



The Commanding Officer," Col, John B. Rose 



Frontispiece 



HEART OF THE WORLD 

Thanks of the State Facmg p. lo 

Tribute from the Nation '' lo 

From the Adjutant-General " lo 

Types of Aqueduct Structure " ii 



MOBILIZATION 

Regimental Headquarters, Croton Lake 
Company C of the "Seventh" . . . . 
"Seven of the Seventh" at "Four" . . 

Early Headquarters Scenes 

Second Battalion Staff 

Glimpses of the Line 



26 

27 
42 

43 

58 
59 



CHRONOLOGICAL 

Officers — and Others 

Dunwoodie Gate House 

Gathering of Line and Staff (1918) 

Shots at "The Colonel" 

"Buzz," "Buzz Two," "The Judge," and "Scribners" 
A Portion of "My Company" 



Faci 



g P- 90 

91 
106 
107 
138 
138 



THE LINE IMPREGNABLE 

Posting the Relief Faci7ig p. 154 

Companies D and E " 155 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

Organization of the Line (Tables) . . Fadngpp. 170, 171, 186, 187 

The Men Who Made the Line Facing p. 202 

In the Third Battalion " 203 

THE TRAIL OF THE OCTOPUS 

Home-made Bomb-fenders and Vulnerable Points , . Facing p. 21S 
Friends of the Regiment " 219 

DOGS OF THE REGIMENT 

The Patrol Dog and His Work Facing p. 266 

Tables on Strength " 267 

PAY PROBLEMS 

Regimental Headquarters, Ossining pad^ig p. 282 

Other ''Friends of the Regiment" " 283 

MORALE 

The Parson in Action Facutg p. 298 

Mrs. James Spyer, "Mother of the Regiment" ... " 299 

Recreational Measures " 314 

Mrs. Peter Duryea (Viola Allen) " 315 

Men with Mean Jobs " 330 

Women Who Helped Sustain Morale " 331 

TRANSPORTATION 

Some of the "Three Kinds" Facing p. 346 

Poughkeepsie Motor Corps Drivers " 347 

LITERATURE OF THE REGIMENT 

"The Watchdog" ■ Facing p. 347 

Contest Board and Milling Dept " 347 

Sergt. Joseph Chase — Sketches '' 362 

The Regimental Song Fadngpp. 362, 363 

Inspirational Adversities Facing p. 363 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

HEALTH OF THE REGIMENT 

Major Charles E. Townsend Facing p. 378 

Influenza and Health Charts Facing pp. 378,379 

The Part that Housing Played Facing p. 379 

More Housing Conditions " 394 

Problems that Made for Health Questions .... " 394 
Victims of the Epidemic — Levitt, Poole, Miss Craig, 
Hallett, Miller, Baley, Garland, Conway, North- 
rip, Baker " 395 

DEMOBILIZATION 

Progress of the Memorial Boulder Facing p. 395 

Dedication of Memorial Boulder " 410 

Gridiron Dinner at Officers' Reunion " 410 

*'The Last Line" " 411 

The Officers' Reunion " 411 

IN MEMORIAM 

Those Who Went West: Landphier, Pernice, Burke, 
Reynolds, Howell, Neville, Nouse, Peebles, 
Fajardo, Harrington, Green, Barton, Adany, 
Bennett, Tate, Rourke, Stephens, Gee, Stokes, 
HiGGiNs, Roberts, Waldron, Ryan, Fuller, Kelly, 

HaLLENACK, WiER, DeCoSTA Facing pp. 426, 427 

De Costa's Funeral Facing p. 444 

TAIL-PIECE 

*'TaPs" Facing p. 506 

Sectional Maps of First Provisional's Line (With 

Charts) In Pockets 



' 



INTRODUCTION 



The services of the men who have fought and died on the 
battle-fields of Europe or who have undergone the arduous work 
of the training-camps at home have been recognized by the 
nation in many ways. Their spirit of service and sacrifice has 
been appreciated. 

There has been a generous measure of recognition extended to 
all those who served behind the battle-line, in the departments of 
supply, in the industries back of the line; but, as yet, there has 
been little or no recognition of those home-guard and allied 
organizations that served faithfully and stood ready to protect 
public interests in case of emergency, except from those who 
were personally familiar with their work. 

Among these organizations none is entitled to more credit than 
the First Provisional Regiment, organized to protect the water- 
supply of the great city of New York, a difficult task in view of 
the possibilities of attack upon the system. 

The services of this organization in protecting the Aqueduct 
and water-supply of New York have been loyally and efficiently 
rendered. 

This vital source of supply to the millions of a great city has 
been carefully protected. The work has been creditably done 
and has been, in effect, a part of the great military effort of our 
people which aided, in such a determining way, in bringing the 
war against the Central Powers to a successful conclusion. It 
has been a part of that great national organization for the war, 
without which there could have been no satisfactory measure of 
success. 

Let us give a full measure of credit to the officers and men of 
the First Provisional Regiment. 




/W^'V^ 



PREFACE 

]\fOT all the heroes of the Great War fought and died on the battle- 
fields of Europe. In the '^ second-line trenches,^ in war industry y 
war management^ and war-time co-ordination of national energy 
the price of ultimate sacrifice and final self-abnegation was paid 
again and again. In thousands of homes in this fair land even 
women and children paid the price, that justice might not perish 
from the earth. 

There were tasks that were essential, indispensable and vital to 
the success of the allied arms; tasks that demanded strong men, 
patient men, big men; tasks inherently without glory, honor, pres- 
tige or plaudits; that held to the deadening routine of the inevitable 
those whose hearts were on the battle-lines of France. 

It is of such a labor that this volume tells — the old, old story of 
incessant toil, incessant struggle, the conquering of the unprece- 
dented, and the endless battle against ignorance, cupidity and mis- 
understanding. It is the story of eight thousand men drawn from 
all portions of the State of New York who at one time and another 
comprised the forces charged with the safety of the World's Heart. 

A simple tale — almost primitive in its simplicity, for it goes to 
the fundamentals of life — it tells of the joys and sorrows of their 
far-fiung line. It is the story of the Great Answer; the answer of 
a State Militant to the Threat of Berlin. Read here the tale of the 
men of the First Provisional, who held the Line Impregnable 
in that military operation within the borders of New York State 
from August, igi7, until the close of the Great War. Read of 
their incessant work and their occasional play; of their problems 
and how they were met; how they fought the secret agents of the Great 
German Empire; how, inspired by the leadership of their Com- 
manding Officer, who sacrificed all for the regiment, they worked 
and struggled and died for the pride of the Task that was theirs. 



''—AND ALL IS WELL" 

Note. — This originally appeared in shorter form in The Watchdogs under the 
caption, "The Three Posts." The Fourth Post has been added since the successful 
termination of the First Provisional Regiment's work. 

Remember the nights — those August nights — 

When the stars came out to play 
For a little while in the dark-blue dome 

By the light of the Milky Way; 
And the bullfrogs croaked on the streamlet edge. 

And the warm world drowsed and fell 
Asleep till the pinking dawn streaked up. — 

''Post One! And all is welir 

There* s a beaten path from 'Shokan 

To the lights of New York Town 
That the men of the Guard have pounded hard 

On the Job of No Renown, 
There* s a stretch of cut and cover 

Where a blade of grass can't grow; 
There's a line of steps to the culvert edge 

And the flickering lantern's glow. 

Remember the nights — those autumn nights — 

When the frost-bite chilled the air. 
And the night wind whispered among the leaves 

Till the thickets were clean and bare; 
When the mountains turned at a Midas touch. 

And the Indian summer spell 
Was wrought in the haze of the golden days — 

''Post Two! And all is well!" 

There's a beaten path from 'Shokan 

To the lights of New York Town 
That the men of the Guard have pounded hard 

On the Job of No Renown, 
There's a record wrought in iron 

Where the guard's broad heels have trod 
As he walked up there on the mountain-side 

Alone with the stars — and God, 



"—AND ALL IS WELL" 

Remember the nights — the winter nights — 

When the world was white and dead. 
Or the storm roared down from the Catskill peaks 

With the boom of a giant's tread. 
No, you^ll not forget in the years to come. 

When the tales of war men ted 
{Oh, the crunch of snow on the post below!) — 

''Post Three! And all is well!'' 

There's a beaten path from 'Shokan 

To the lights of New York Town 
That the men of the Guard have pounded hard 

On the Job of No Renown; 
Where the long white drifts are broken 

And the record's written clear. 
Let the snow-path speak with its frosty creak, 

" They were here — were here — right here!" 
******* 

Remember those nights — the nights of frost 

And the nights of heat and rain — 
When ye went your ways in the mighty days 

That never can come again; 
When ye guarded the throb of the World's Great Heart 

From the schemes of the spawn of hell. 
Till the war was won and the job was done — 

''Post Four! And all is well!" 

There's a beaten path from 'Shokan 

To the lights of New York Town 
That the men of the Guard have pounded hard 

On the Job of No Renown. 
Now the feet of the guard tread peace trails. 

And the grass is dimpling green 
On the long, long line that shall tell the years 

Of the Men Who Stood Between. 



PART I 



H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZA A ? 



THE HEART OF THE WORLD 

IN the short, gray, fog-swathed days of creation there arose 
from the edge of the Atlantic under some great pressure of 
the earth's crust, or by some giant upheaval of the earth's vitals, 
a small, rock-ribbed island, dripping with the slime-mud of the 
ocean's bed, steaming, gaunt and desolate, in the half-light of the 
world's morning. 

The tides ebbed and flowed through the centuries, and in 
history's dawn, when Egypt was a child among nations, when the 
Briton cave man still carved his history on the walrus tusk, and 
when the forebears of the Goth and the Hun lived in their earthy 
lairs, it stood, majestic and forest clad, at the mouth of a great 
glacial-made river, its low shores pounded by the crashing breakers 
of the Atlantic, its forests the shifting homes of wandering abori- 
gine fishing tribes. 

The centuries passed and the cave man went to live in houses 
of wood and stone. In the north of Europe there arose a hardy 
race of fair-haired, blue-eyed adventurers and rovers of the sea 
— faring far, living and dying with a laugh in their teeth, ex- 
ploring, conquering and perishing. And that it was a Dragon 
prow that first raised the shore-line of Manhattan there is little 
doubt. But that prow drove by on the horizon to the churn of 
white water beneath its foot, and the boil of the slave-engined 
oars. The peace of the primitive was untouched for a few hun- 
dred years. 

Paganism waned and the cross of Christianity flamed in many 
lands. Polled monks wrote on illumined pages the history of their 
time, and a race of hardy islanders in whose veins flowed some 
of the blood of the Vikings, shook oflF the yoke of a weakened 
Rome and stood forth as a people of the future. Across the 
channel on the mainland of Europe, a lowland people built their 
dikes, fought back the sea, and then sent abroad their white- 
winged ships to conquer the sea in its own element. 



2 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

The year of Grace One Thousand Six Hundred and Nine — 
the Dutch ship, Half Moon, lay in the harbor of the Island of 
Manhattan, and Hendrick Hudson had formed the beginnings of 
the city which was to play such an important and vital part in 
the history of man. 



The Twentieth Century; and the world's great heart throbbed 
in the Island of Manhattan. By leaps and bounds the Island had 
taken unto itself the power of a world center and through it ebbed 
and flowed the tides of gold, the tides of trade, and the tides of 
life. Great block hives of concrete and steel shot upward into the 
heavens as the pressure of the aeonic beats increased. Its life 
became more and more maelstromic, more and more catholic; 
ever accelerated. Its people were difl^erent from all other peoples 
of the earth; its position unlike that of any other city of man's 
history. Imperial Rome approached it but never equaled it in 
relative importance, for Rome was never free from active sedition 
within and wars without. 

In its coffers there rested the bulk of the wealth of the richest 
nation in the history of mankind. In one of its smallest streets 
the industries and utilities of a civilized world were the playthings 
of Midas. It became intensive, vigorous and dominating, the epit- 
ome of American spirit. New York was vital, essential, indis- 
pensable. It was a monument to the era of peace in which it 
had sprung to its position of prime importance. What New York 
said in the morning the world repeated in the afternoon, and the 
noonday songs of the Battery were echoed at night in San Fran- 
cisco. 

From the west and south the golden tides of wealth and com- 
merce surged through its portals, and from the thrones and 
council chambers of its political kings went forth edicts that 
swayed the destinies of nations. 

It was the greatest city of the greatest state and the greatest 
nation (how great that nation was, even the people themselves 
did not know until the awakening came). 



Two thousand miles away — across the Atlantic Ocean — a great 
Beast was making ready to spring at the world's throat. While 
the rest of civilization prepared for the upbuilding and the up- 
lifting of the race, the lightening of the tasks of the hands of 
man and the ultimate conquest of mind over matter, the Beast, 
disguised in the cloak of social imperialisrn, made ready for the 



THE HEART OF THE WORLD 3 

spring. Every weapon that devilish ingenuity and criminal cun- 
ning could devise was to be used in the onslaught. While the 
peoples of the world bent their learning to the arts of peace, the 
Brute of Germanism turned science and art to its program of blast. 
The years passed. The Beast, strong, cunning and schooled, 
was ready. In every civilized country of the world its agents 
awaited the word. Its armies crouched, tense. Its navies of sea 
and air, trained to the full devilishness of desire, strained at leash. 



The flash of an assassin's pistol in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914, 
flamed to a world conflagration in the early days of August. It 
was Der Tag — the Day for which the Beast had been waiting and 
preparing — the great, great day of blood and slaughter and lust 
and power. With one tremendous spring of fire and steel the 
Beast was at the throat of the world. 

Ensued chaotic vortex of death and dominance; black days 
in which the Pan-Germanic doctrine of the right of might sought 
to establish a blasting truth. Rough-shod the Beast strode across 
butchered Belgium and into France — on and on to the Marne; 
fighting, biting, rending and tearing as it moved; violating all 
the laws of man and God; offering on its own bloody altar sacri- 
fices of crucified men, outraged women and bloody-stumped 
children to the old Gods which it worshiped in secret; the gods 
of wood and stone and thunder and lightning — Thor, Wotan and 
Siegfried. 

Against the Beast of Berlin, the Jackal of Vienna and the Buz- 
zard of Constantinople there stood England, France, the rem- 
nants of Belgium, Serbia and Macedonia, and spy-mined Russia. 
Italy joined the allied forces, and on land and sea and in the air 
battle was joined, fields and streams ran red with blood and ever 
the Beast drove and slew. 

It was a new kind of warfare, this battling of the Brute. In- 
visible, he reached with talons of steel and raked the lines of his 
enemies a score of miles away. Brave men who went forth to 
fight him died by the thousands without having seen one of his 
off'spring. Against those who stood beftween him and world 
dominance he launched all the war-science of his years of prep- 
aration, and on the high seas his sub-surface pirates slew wan- 
tonly and indiscriminately. 

The nations that had taken the sword against him were not 
prepared for such warfare as this. They must learn, prepare 
and re-prepare to meet it; their methods must be changed and 
for this there must be time. And steadily the Beast broke through 



4 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

wall after wall of living flesh offered up by civilization as its price 
for existence. The twilight of the world's Great Night closed in. 
The night came on apace, and through its darkened hours there 
sounded the mighty groan of a hopeless humanity. From afar 
the Twin Mongols watched with unblinking eyes, taking little or 
no part in the fray, though allied in name with the forces of right. 

Only one light beamed steadily in the darkness. Only one 
factor had been untried. The great heart of the world throbbed 
on; a great transatlantic people waited, stunned by the fact of 
the Thing That Could Not Happen. The United States of 
America stood as the Neutral, in part uncomprehending the 
meaning of the cataclysm. 

Blockaded by the fleets of Britain and France, the Central 
Powers were unable to send their navies of war or commerce 
abroad. And to the allied powers there early came the conviction 
that in industrial America lay the answer to their great and cry- 
ing need. America, and America alone, with its wonderful 
machinery and its skilled mechanics could furnish the stream of 
steel which must beat back the hordes of Berlin. America, with 
its vast natural resources, must be drawn upon for the food, the 
clothing and the supplies without which man power alone was 
impotent. And so it was that America became essential to the 
allied powers. 

The part of the State of New York and the part of the City 
of New York in the life of the allied forces prior to the entrance 
of America into the war need no elaboration here. New York 
was the central and controlling point of those vast war-product 
organizations that sprung to life overnight, and New York State 
and the states that shouldered it were the homes of the great 
munitions plants that thundered with their million wheels day 
and night while the guns thundered overseas and the allied 
armies fought for time and stores. 

Then the shell streams and the gun streams began to flow 
across the Atlantic from the great port that was playing such 
an important part in the life of man. Months passed and the 
nation writhed in bonds of political neutrality that could not 
still the clamor of the heart's alliance. And the nation prepared 
for the inevitable. Then came the overt act, the declaration of 
war, and the United States of America took up the sword. 

Not in terms of black-mouthed guns and steel-jawed fighting 
men may there be measured the weight of America's might, 
thrown into the world turmoil when the balance scales of the future 
tipped threateningly. It was the impetus of the Youngest and 
the Greatest Nation, flinging into its preparation and its charge 



THE HEART OF THE WORLD 5 

all of the frenzied passion with which Youth champions ideals. 
With one stroke it paid its debt of birth to England; its bond 
of liberty to France; its obligation of existence to Almighty God. 

The City of New York had occupied an important position 
before the entry of the United States into the world's conflict. 
It assumed a position, the importance of which is impossible to 
overestimate, following the entry of the United States. Through 
its port went the great shipments that made the preparation for 
the American armies possible; from it transport after transport 
steamed out to sea with khaki-covered decks. It was the center 
around which the great preparations of the nation orbited. It 
was the great embarkation port of the nation because it was 
strategically best adapted to the purpose. 

Figures from the War Department show that 90 per cent, 
of the American forces sent abroad embarked from the 
Port of the City of New York. 

It was the funnel for munitions and supplies as it was for 
fighting power. Greater and greater became the stream that 
flowed through its gates. From the West and from the South, 
from Dix, Devens, Upton and Merritt, division after division 
went out to sea through its portals, and with them supplies on 
which their power depended. 

On April 29, 191 8, the War Department, in its weekly review, 
made this official announcement: 

**The outcome of the present operation in the West 
depends on man power." 
and in the same statement: 

"Ours is the imperative duty of providing replacement 
units for the armies in France." 

And 90 per cent, of this work was being done through the 
Port of the City of New York. On the heart of the world de- 
pended the life of civilization. 

As a financial center its importance has already been estab- 
lished; as a center of allied propaganda its place is well known, 
but there are comparatively few who know even at this day that 
it was the center of Pan-German propaganda and Pan-German 
machinations for the entire American continent. 

At the very heart of the world lurked the disease spread by 
the Beast throughout the civilized nations — ready to strike at 
the heart when the moment came. 

THE THREAT 

From early in the Great War, practically from August, 1914, 
until the end of the conflict, New York was the center of the great 



6 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

German-made web of propagandism and espionage In this coun- 
try. Not even Washington ranked it in the Pan-German machi- 
nations, although Washington was inseparably linked to it by 
the cogs of the mighty German machine. How heavily the Im- 
perial German Government drew from its forces in New York 
is shown in the Senatorial investigation into Bolshevism that 
revealed the leaders of the German counter revolution in Russia 
as imports from the East Side. 

It was the clearing-house for Pan-German activity, bearing the 
same relation to the German embassy at Washington that a great 
machine shop bears to the residence of the owner. Centered for 
the most part in the lower portions of the city and more par- 
ticularly in lower Broadway in the midst of the great German com- 
mercial interests, Pan-Germanism spread its tentacles throughout 
the entire social and business fabric of the world's great heart. 
It was in the institutions of learning, in all forms and phases of 
mercantile life, in the world of print, the world of art and the world 
of drama. In the very folds of the flag it lay coiled, now and then 
uprearing its vicious head in the columns of subsidized public print. 

And until the actual breaking of relations with Germany, it 
left no stone unturned, no test untried, no lie untold to prevent 
this nation from flinging its fighting forces into the battle of 
righteousness. 

But when the break had come, when the nation had finally cast 
off its hateful yoke and stood girding its loins for battle, it was 
then and not till then that German espionage and German Prop- 
agandism assumed its most malignant form. 

From the Imperial chambers at Berlin had come the command, 
"Delay America." To hamper, to hinder, to restrain, to ham- 
string and to annoy — such was the task of the German high agents. 
And to destroy the essential, to breed into the mind of the public 
the seditious hope of peace before actual participation by America; 
to stir in the anarchistic elements revolt against draft; to focus 
the activities of the conscientious objector; to sow local industrial 
dissension and strife, were but parts of the preliminary campaign. 

Beyond this lay the larger program. Fragments of it came 
to light from time to time in the events following the seizure of 
the Dr. Albert papers. A portion of William J. Flynn's great 
screen drama tells of another phase, the attempted blotting out 
of two-thirds of the ranking officers of the United States Navy in 
a New York hotel. Had the heads of German propagandism been 
satisfied to listen to the explosion of that bomb from afar they 
might have — but enough of that. There are some things that 
cannot be told without permission. 



THE HEART OF THE WORLD 7 

It was not without cause that United States Secret Service 
agents committed nightly burglary in a Broadway office, next 
door to an office which they had rented as a base from which to 
watch the New York treasurer-fence of Germany in this country. 
Night after night these shadows of Justice burglarized, searched 
and decoded, reading in the German memorandums descriptions 
of themselves and their histories back to the days when William 
J. Flynn, the Great Eagle of the brood, played ball in the lots of 
Harlem. So it was that the Secret Service learned of the great 
organization of reservists that was being formed in the city of 
New York, of the stored machine-guns, the stacks of arms and 
ammunition that were to stand ready for Der Tag on American 
soil. 

Germany was to strike and to strike hard. Could her U-boat, 
coast-harrying program which began in the summer of 191 8 have 
been carried to a conclusion, the great cities of the Eastern sea- 
board would have been scourged. Chaos was planned for New 
York. The mailed hand of the Beast ever clutched for the very 
heart of the world. Riots, explosion and destruction were to 
usher in the disaster which should halt the flow of troops and 
munitions overseas from the great port and at one stroke paralyze 
the Atlantic seaboard. Ever the testing, the trying and the prep- 
aration went on. In the winter of 191 7-1 8 over one hundred 
fires in the city of New York in one day showed a majority of 
suspected incendiary origin. The figures of the Fire Department 
give an increase of two millions of dollars damage by fire over 
peace years, and Fire Commissioner Thomas J. Drennan's figures 
show that the big increase was on ships and docks. 

To the rattle of machine-guns in the hands of well-organized 
and well-armed reservist rioters; to the roar of explosions in 
streets darkened by the crippling of the power lines there was to 
be added the might of man's greatest friend but most powerful 
enemy — fire ! 

By order of William Rex the torch was to be placed at the heart 
of New York with cataclysmic result. Fire in the crowded dis- 
tricts, sweeping the tenements of the East Side in huge broad 
sheets of flame. Fire, bellowing death and disaster in the ex- 
plosions of the munitions districts, bursting shells and exploding 
magazines roaring in earth-shaking succession. Fire in the storage 
plants, the warehouses and the shipping districts; explosive fire 
in the business sections where oils and wastes were to render the 
streets uninhabitable. A mighty conflagration, seething unchecked 
because the water supplies of the great city were to be destroyed 
on the stroke that gave the signal for the loosing of hell on the 



8 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

heart of the world. New York was to be rendered helpless as a 
base port of supply to the armies abroad. 

THE SAFEGUARD 

Between the City of New York and such chaos stood but one 
real insurance, the aqueducts of the north — Catskill and Croton, 
with a flow of over 500,000,000 gallons daily, and the hydrant 
pressures that meant salvation. 

And because this great water system was vulnerable through- 
out its line, the shadow of participation in the European conflict 
had barely made itself certain when, as BernstorflF was given his 
passports in February of 191 7, the National Guard of the State 
of New York was called out into the storms of winter to cover the 
vital artery. Of the disposition at that time and later of the 
3,200 men who guarded it until federalization, the reader may 
learn in detail from the orders that appear in the appendices of 
this work. 

The safety of the Catskill Aqueduct was so important to the 
nation and the state, that from the first certainty of war until 
three months after the armistice was signed, it was guarded along 
its entire length; it was so important that it was the last great 
public utility in the country to be covered by armed troops as the 
great war came to an end. Its safety meant the safety of the 
City of New York from the torch that was to be laid at its breast. 
The safety of the Port of New York meant the uninterrupted flow 
of that mighty stream whose crest reached Chateau Thierry just 
in time in the summer of 191 8. The safety of the Catskill Aque- 
duct meant safety to the thing vital to the success of the Allied 
armies. 

There is no need for proof on the subject. The reply of Colonel 
John B. Rose, the commanding officer of the First Provisional 
Regiment, to a suggestion in February of 191 8 that the force on 
the Aqueduct be reduced has never been questioned, and that 
reply was in substance: 

*'In this world-wide struggle. New York City must 
maintain an impregnable position." 

"The American forces and those of the Allies are sup- 
plied from the Port of the City of New York. Any at- 
tempt to weaken its usefulness will cause disastrous re- 
sults." 

How supremely important the State of New York considered 
the safety of the Aqueduct may be gathered from an extract 
taken from a letter of Governor Whitman to the commanding 



THE HEART OF THE WORLD 9 

officer of the First Provisional Regiment on the matter at the close 
of the Governor's term of office, Dec. 30, 1918, in which he said. 

"No task of greater importance to the State or Nation 
was asigned to any regiment during the war, and the fact 
that the water supply has been safeguarded and the great 
City of New York has been permitted to perform its func- 
tion as the most important factor in the conduct of the 
war, is a sufficient indication that the work has been well 
done." 

And the safety of the Aqueduct was considered of such value 
by the Department of the East that at the close of the war the 
work was reviewed by the Adjutant-General of the Department in 
a letter, reproduced elsewhere, that congratulates the commanding 
officer of the First Provisional upon the work. 

And thus it is that two great facts are established: 

1. The success of the American and Allied armies depended 
hugely upon the inviolability of the City of New York. 

2. The safety of the City of New York from the destruction 
that had been planned for it balanced upon the safety of the 
water arteries from the north. 

Therefore, it is at once apparent that the safeguarding of New 
York's water supply system was the most important military 
operation on this side of the Atlantic Ocean and necessary to the 
success of transatlantic campaigns. 

Even with the full importance of the Aqueduct realized, such 
a statement is too sweeping in its nature to be passed without 
necessary additional comment. There is no claim that the task 
of safeguarding the Aqueduct was more important than the man- 
agement of the railroads, which were governmentally operated, 
but that was not a military operation. The training camps that 
dotted all America were of the most vital importance, but they 
were preparatory and could not be classed as a military operation. 
The forts maintained along the entire seaboard during the war 
were vital, but they were peace-time forts also. The guarding of 
the vital artery so necessary to the City of New York was a 
military operation, made necessary by war — and the most im- 
portant on this side of the Atlantic Ocean. 

And the State of New York was charged with this most im- 
portant and vital operation. 

It was a tremendous responsibility. How far-reaching the 
results of its success or failure would be was seen only by the few. 
Its immensity was appreciated by a comparatively small number. 



lo H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

It is doubtful if its full importance was ever appreciated by any 
one connected with the State forces until it was brought forcibly 
to attention by a staff officer from the Department of the East 
in September, 1917. 

The State of New York, in addition to furnishing its 27th 
Division and the other famous divisions for the army that was 
to go overseas, was thus called upon for a military operation 
within its own borders that affected the very outcome of the strug- 
gle between civilization and the Beast of Berlin. It is the period 
of that operation with which this narrative deals. 

And now what of this structure that meant so much in the de- 
termination of the world's future history — ^this structure on which 
so much stress was placed; around which there centered the his- 
tory of one of the most remarkable organizations of military 
annals, that structure of which this work deals .? What of the great 
life-giving artery of the World's Heart? 

Despite the fact that it is the second greatest engineering feat 
of the world, completed, in so far as the system which was guarded 
is concerned, at a cost of 139 millions of dollars, the mind of the 
general public has always seemed so hazy as to the exact nature 
of the Aqueduct, that at the risk of delaying the action of the 
story, consider for a moment its history, physical features and 
route from a military viewpoint. 

In a few words, the mind must follow the water problems of the 
City of New York from the days of the original Aqueduct when 
bored pine logs from the first Pearl Street-Broadway reservoir of 
1776 delivered water to a population of 25,000; through similar 
service by the Manhattan Company in 1800 and in 1830 by the 
town which had reached then 200,000; on up to the construction 
of the old Croton system in 1837, the new Croton in 1890, and the 
rapid outgrowth of system after system, including the Ridgewood 
of Long Island, until 1917, when the New Catskill Aqueduct began 
its delivery of water to the City of New York. 

By the draining of 257 square miles of the Esopus watershed 
of the Catskills into the Ashokan Reservoir, and the creation of 
a great covered conduit leading from the Ashokan Dam to the 
uttermost limits of the great city and to carry not only the Esopus 
water, but in the future the drainage of the great Schoharie basin 
of 314 square miles, the City of New York secured itself against 
the water problems of all time. In 1917, with the Ashokan-Hill- 
view portion of the water system completed and furnishing over 
300,000,000 gallons daily, New York was fortified against water 
famine — and more than that — against conflagration. 

Not all of the other systems, not all of the marine pumps, the 



State or N e w Yo B ,'< 
Executive Chamber 

Albany 



December 30, 1918 



Colonel John S. Eose, 

Headquarters, 1st Provisional Regiment, 

Ossining, New York. 

}i^ dear Colonel Rose: 

At ray request in July 1917, you made 
a survey of the Gatskill-Croton Aqueduct System and 
devised a plan for its protection during the period 
of hostilities "between this country and the Central 
Powers, and et the urgent request of Brigadier General 
Louis '.'?. Stotesbury, The Adjutant General, and with 
my approval, you organized and promptly mohilized the 
First Provisional Regiment, stationing the various 
units along the different sectors of the Aqueduct. 

Uo task of greater importance to the State 
or nation was assigned to any regiment during the 
war, and the fact that the water supply has "been 
safeguarded and the great City of Hew York has "been 
permitted to perform its function as the most im- 
portant factor in the conduct of the war, is a 
sufficient indication that the work has been well 
done . 

I desire to take this opportunity of 
thanking you personally and officially for the ex- 
cellent work you have performed for the State and 
the Nation, and to congratulate you upon your 
success in organizing a regiment which has established 
an enviable reputation for thoroughness and efficiency. 

Sincerely yours, 



From the Governor 



IN REPLY 

REFER TO HEADQUARTERS EASTERN DEPARTMENT 

GOVERNOR'S ISLAND. NEW YORK CITY 

January 14, 1919. JGL-sm 



Col. John B. Rose, 

Commanding 1st Provisional Ile^iinent 

New York State Guard. 

My dear Colonel Roso: 

Permit me to congratulate you upon the 
efficient manner in v/hich the guarding of the long line of 
the New York acqueduct has been performed by the Ist Provisional 
Regiment, New York State Guard, under your command. 

T}ie guarding of this long and vulnerable 
line would have been difficult under any circumstances, but was 
particularly so with the limited number of men at your connand. 
Running as it does, largely through a wild and mountainous 
country, the acqueduct is easily accessible to enemies with 
evil intent, it required exceptional organization and the greatest 
vigilance on the part of all concerned to properly protect it. 
That you had made a careful study of the entire line and had 
fully grasped the problem confronting you was evident from the 
disposition you made of your men. That the instruction of 
both officers and men had been careful and thorough and that 
they v;ere fully alive to their responsibilities was clearly 
demonsLTated to me on my recent inspection of a part of the 
line by the alertness and zeal with which their duties were 
performed. 

That no damage of any kind was done to 
the acqueduct during the nineteen odd months that v/e were at 
war reflects great credit upon all concerned, and you are to 
be congratulated, and the officers and men of your command 
highly commended for this most satisfactory result, '- 



y truly, 




From the Department of the East 






THE ADJUTANT GENERAL 



December 27,- 1918* 



Colonel John 3. Rose, 

1st Provisional Regiment ,!T.Y. G, 

Ossining, N.Y. 



My dear Colonel: 



The First Provisional Regiment has 
accomplished its mission and is about to be relieved 
from active duty. Its members will return to their 
civil occupations happy in the knowledge of work well 
done and with the assurance that they have won for 
themselves the respect and admiration of the people 
of the State. 

Their task was in general uninterest- 
ing and was often performed under the most trying and 
discouraging circumstances. They suffered all of the 
hardships of war v;ith no hope th^t its honors would be 
theirs. Their loyalty, patriotism and high devotion 
to duty are worthy of the highest commendation. 

I cannot close without a word of appre- 
ciation of the Commanding Officer of the regiment. 
The organization, recruited from all parts of the State,. 
v,'hich you formed- almost... overnight became under your able 
leadership thoroughly-drilled, disciplined and efficient 
- fitted in every way to cope with difficult duties 
which it was called upon to perform. Its history will 
ever be a testimonial to your untiring energy, splendid 
leadership and great- executive ability. 

Your sincere friend, 



'72Z^^^^^^^^ 



From the Adjutant-General 



Joint contains abot/.i 280 /to Oj 
poured lead and 23 fbs. ofco. 
lead s'l/gs forced into sl^r:nkage^. 
sp-xe bu gib xreu>s 



32- f 91b: 




'aximum deflection V, 




SHANDAKEN TUNNEL 



m\m\\\\\N\^ 



Cast iron-- 
Inside of bell machined 



^^^^^^^ 



li'4' steel band shrunk on-. 



FLEXIBLE-JOINTED PIPE 
NARROWS SIPHON 

ror City conduits of Catskill aqueduct 
standard bell-and-spigot cast-iron pipes 
and hdi-bar and riueted steel pipes mere used. 




PRESSURE TUNNEL 

Ronaout.WoiikilL 14-6" 

Moodna __. _ l4'-2" 

Hudson. Breakmck Croton Lake. U'-Cf 

Yonkers _.... „ _..„_ Jd'-?' 

citij i5-mo:imz(yji:o" 



REINFORCED CONCRETE AQUEDUCT 
KENSICO BY-PASS 



-IS-O- 




CUT-AND-COVER AQUEDUCT „, , 

( Kensico Reservoir to Hill View Reservoir. 17-6'' 18-0 ) 



Standard types of conduit used in the Catskill aqueduct. (In addition to the 
above, rlveted^and lock-bar joint steel pipes and bell-and-spigot cast-iron pipes 
of ordinary types were used.) 



THE HEART OF THE WORLD ii 

pumping stations, the fire tugs and the other fire-fighting aux- 
iHaries held the insurance of this great volume of water swinging 
down under the pressure of the grades from the Catskills to the 
hydrant heads of the greater city. The lake from which it takes 
its original plunge is alone sufl&cient to cover Manhattan Island 
with 30 feet of water. Here was real protection. 

But the Catskill Aqueduct had been built in the soft years of 
peace. The standard of those times was, in brief, "There can 
be no war that will affect this country." 

Men said this not without cause. First, desire; second, sincere 
belief, made for such a standard. The rules for the governing of 
the quarrels of nations had been laid down in solemn covenants. 
Arbitration had become the accepted standard of civilized peoples. 
Although the Brute of Berlin had published in the works of his 
statecraft and in the printed writings of his masters of fire and 
steel fair warnings of what he proposed to do, a decent world 
could not believe in the possibility of the Great Obscenity. And 
least of all, America — her northern boundaries unmarked for 
thousands of miles by a fortress or garrison; her southern boundary 
strong enough in itself to handle the writhings of a half-civilized 
and vastly inferior neighbor, her coasts protected by thousands 
of miles of ocean waters. 

And men built as they believed. The architecture of 20th 
century Americanism reflects the spirit of the times, the certainty 
that a great war in which this country could be involved was im- 
possible. Constantly the call of the people was for smaller and 
smaller forces of land and sea. The nation revelled in the days 
of peace and its architecture proclaimed the national belief. 

Nowhere was this better demonstrated than in the construction 
of the great Catskill Water System. Unlike the great water con- 
duits of ancient Rome, the Appian, the Marcian, the Tepulan, 
and the Julian, the Aqueduct of Claudius and the Old and New 
Anio, so built that they might not be tampered with by the 
enemy, the Catskill Aqueduct at the time of this nation's par- 
ticipation in the great war lay open to the hand of the German 
agent at nearly 300 vulnerable points. 

For its structure of concrete, or steel, as the case might be, 
varying from 10 to 17 feet in its largest diameter, the reader has 
only to refer to the appended charts which tell the story better 
than many words. Where the Aqueduct bored its steel or rock 
tunnels through the mountains or hills there was no danger. But 
where, in its long swing from the headworks to its final plunge 
at Hillview, it was repeatedly transversed by culverts running 
beneath the flow of water; where it was marked by naked siphon 



12 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

pipes at the lower levels of the valleys it crossed, and whenever 
or wherever, because of its structure, it was open to the violence 
of high explosive, there it must be guarded. 

There was little danger to the Aqueduct from the top. Noth- 
ing short of modern machinery and constant labor could injure 
the surface of the cut and cover structure, for the great pipe was 
never full save at the siphons where the water crossed from one 
side of a valley to another under terrific pressure. But it were an 
easy matter for a dozen men in an organized attempt to place 
in as many unguarded culverts between the storage lake at Ken- 
sico and the Hillview reservior sufficient explosive to rip open the 
great structure from beneath. Two or three others could, with a 
few hours of labor, blast out the mighty face of the Kensico dam 
from the chambers. And before the damage could have been 
righted. New York would have been put to the torch. 

Now consider the course of the Aqueduct itself. 

From the Ashokan Reservoir at 6io feet above the sea, down 
through the gate houses of the headworks, and the siphons of the 
Tongore and Esopus and the Olive Bridge and Atwood cut and 
cover, the water roars through the Peak tunnel and along the 
mountain's rim to the Valley of the Rondout. 

Dropping below sea-level itself in the four-mile swing beneath 
the Rondout Valley, the solid volume surges through the steel 
siphons upward again to an elevation of 462 before it plunges 
through the Bonticou tunnel beneath the craggy Shawangunks 
to the Mohonk levels and so to the Walkill Siphons. There it 
drops below sea-level again under the Walkill River, rising to the 
16 miles of cut and cover, southeasterly to the edge of the Hudson 
south of Cornwall. 

Then it drops — ^down, down through the Moodna and the Hud- 
son pressure tunnels, through the living granite foundations of 
Storm King Mountain — down 1,500 feet and five and a half miles 
across before it rises from the welter, the boil and the darkness of 
the subterranean passages with the roar of Niagara in the throat 
of the Breakneck uptake shaft on the eastern shore. 

And now through Bull Hill, the alternating cut and cover that 
lies between the Foundry and the Indian Brook exposed siphons, 
the Garrison tunnel where it shoots beneath the State highway. 
Cat Hill, Peekskill Hollow Creek east of the town itself, and to 
another long line of cut and cover and to the Hunter's Brook 
siphons. 

From the Scribner tunnel and the Turkey Mountain siphons it 
goes down under Croton Lake and up on the other side, now head- 



THE HEART OF THE WORLD 13 

ing due south through the Croton, Chedeayne and Millwood 
tunnels, Sarles Hill, the Harlem siphons, and so to Kensico with 
its Cyclopean dam. 

Feeding into Kensico Reservoir through the great influent and 
leaving it at a level of 1.339, the great conduit enters the country 
of open cut and cover and the southern siphons. Through the 
Lakehurst, Dike, Kensico, Eastview and Elmsford tunnels with 
intermittent cut and cover plentifully strewn with vulnerable 
culverts, it follows the 10 miles of straight line and sweeping si- 
phon that parallel closely the great Central Avenue, and so on to 
Hillview Reservoir. There it makes its last appearance above 
the surface before the long tunnel plunge into Greater New 
York. 

In all it traverses a distance of 95 miles of line, interspersed 
with the vulnerable culvert, the siphon, and the access chamber, 
long blow-ofF channels whence over-supply or for that matter the 
entire flow of the Aqueduct may flow. Nearly 100 miles through 
forests, mountains, back ways, and along the edge of teeming 
towns, or the cities of the lower Hudson, where German propa- 
ganda raised its head many times and oft in the months that fol- 
lowed the declaration of war. 

Often so close to the highway, as in the Millwood section, that 
the man in the motor-car might fling into the open culvert the 
bomb-seed of chaos and destruction, running for miles and miles 
through country so wild that the men who guarded it in later 
days shot bear and wildcats from their posts, it was an invitation 
to organized destructive eff'ort. Only constant vigilance could 
guarantee its inviolability. 

Is there wonder then that when the first note of war's alarm 
had rung in the council chambers of the nations, Major-General 
John F. O'Ryan, commanding the New York Division of the Na- 
tional Guard, ordered into the blizzard of February, 191 7, the 
First and the Tenth Infantries to take over and be responsible 
for the Aqueduct. 

And fighting the snowdrifts, as those who followed them in 
later days were destined to fight again, the men of the First and 
the Tenth began that long vigil that was never broken until after 
they themselves had relinquished the thankless task to others, 
and had smashed their way across the Hindenburg line. 

From February, 191 7, until the loth of August in the same 
year, the forces of the National Guard of the State of New York, 
well equipped and from 3,200 to 4,000 strong, with 20,000 re- 
serves at home stations, held the great artery against the threat 
that lurked at the very heart of the world itself. Fired on again 



14 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

and again, ever conscious of the sinister hand that awaited in 
the darkness, the men of the National Guard who were to come to 
grips with the masters of that hand in the far-flung battle-line of 
Flanders, held the Aqueduct safe until midsummer brought 
federalization and orders to move. 



MOBILIZATION 

"... You never ate from a wash-hfiwl 'plate 
Nor slept on a Junior cot! 
You never done with one blanket — one! 
We did, my boy, and we called it jun . . ." 

— " The Veteran Speaks.'* 

PART I 
Preparation 

PANCHO VILLA, arch thief and bandit of the Mexican 
Border, probably never heard of the New York Aqueduct. 
In all likelihood he never considered he would have any effect 
on it any more than he figured he would be responsible for bring- 
ing to the attention of the American people the man who would 
eventually command the troops that drove the clinching spikes 
into the Kaiser's wooden overcoat. But whether Villa knew 
about it, knows about it, or ever learns of it, the fact remains 
that he is indirectly very responsible for the organization which 
was called upon to guard the vital line between the Catskills and 
New York City during the participation of this country in the 
world war. 

The trouble in Mexico during 1916 took from their armories 
practically all of the troops of the New York National Guard. 
The war clouds continued to pile up on the horizon through the 
summer and many of the units went south to the Border — 
result, the formation of depot units of the various regiments. 

Although the old First Infantry, with its usual luck, was left 
behind at Camp Whitman, where it chafed throughout the period 
of Federal service, there was delegated that summer to Major 
John B. Rose, former State senator, and member of the Military 
Affairs Committee, and former captain of Company E, First In- 
fantry, Newburgh, the task of raising depot units for the various 
companies that had been called from their armories. When the 
old units returned to their armories the depot organizations lapsed, 
but during the period of the Mexican campaign there had been 
formed the nucleus for the body which was to later take the place 
of the National Guard, State of New York. Incidentally there 



i6 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

had also been born the beginnings of the organization to which 
was to be committed the care of New York City's insurance 
against destruction. 

Major Rose had toured through the entire district covered by 
the old First Infantry and had organized wherever there were 
armories, depot companies to take the place of those in the 
Mexican service. Unfortunately, not all of the officers secured 
to take up this work received their commissions at that time, 
but this was finally adjusted so that in 1917 there were no broken 
promises as a result of depot organization. 

In July, 1917, the City of New York was advised that the 
Federalized State troops would be taken from that duty early 
in August. At this time it was certain that within a month New 
York State would be stripped of its armed forces. 

At first the city contemplated the use of civilian police, but 
this was abandoned as impracticable, due to the immensity of the 
work and the fact that the task was essentially not a police matter, 
but a military operation. It was then that the City of New York 
through Commissioner Arthur Woods, as the representative of 
the Mayor, called upon the State of New York for troops to 
guard the water supply. 

Whereas in the old days the Governor would have dismissed 
the situation with orders bringing one or two regiments into the 
field, the State was, under conditions then existing, brought by 
this request face to face with a military crisis without precedent 
in its annals. An important military operation was to be carried 
on within its own borders — how important only a few realized. 
The question was, ''Where is the force that will carry it on.?" 
Governor Whitman remembered the preparation of the summer 
of 1916 and called Major Rose to Albany on July 29th. 

"Make a survey of the Aqueduct and give me a report on how 
many men will be necessary to guard it and how it can be worked 
out," the Commander-in-Chief of the State forces told the Major. 

Major Rose went to New York and met in conference with 
Col. J. Weston Myers, Chief Quartermaster of the State, and in 
charge of the New York Arsenal; Colonel Edward V. Howard, 
Paymaster General of the State, and Inspector James Cohalane 
of the New York police force. These three, at the end of the 
preliminary conference, began an inspection of the Aqueduct, 
which they covered in its practical entirety in 48 hours. It was 
on this inspection that the man who was later to become respon- 
sible for its safekeeping first realized the vulnerability of the 
Aqueduct and the magnitude of the task which would confront 
any organization guarding it in war time. After two sleepless 



MOBILIZATION 17 

days of survey from Hillview to the headworks at Ashokan, the 
party returned to Newburgh, where Major Rose prepared his 
report to Governor Whitman. 

This report, written at the City Club on the night of the party's 
return, recommended that with the transportation, Hghting facili- 
ties and safeguards that had been agreed upon by the City's repre- 
sentative. Inspector Cohalane, as essential, the work then being 
done by approximately 3,200 Federalized guardsmen could be 
carried on by a minimum of 1,200 men. 

This figure, as will be noted, was minimum and was based upon 
the immediate furnishing of transportation, lights, telephones 
and culvert screenings by the City of New York. 

Governor Whitman's reply to the report was to ask Major 
Rose to take the task with the commission of colonel. This was 
followed on Monday, August 6th, at 11 a.m., by a conference in 
the office of Brigadier-General R. Dyer at 66 Broadway, at which 
representatives of the State and City met for a final agreement 
as to the disposition and equipping of the troops which were to 
take up the work. 

This conference was the result of appointment made with 
Hon. John Purroy Mitchel, Mayor of the City of New York, 
through General Dyer, who was at that time serving in the 
Division of Defense and Security, the Adjutant-General's de- 
partment. The effects of the meeting and the questions which 
rose as a result of it were of such far-reaching nature and had so 
much bearing on the history of the First Provisional Regiment 
that they deserve some careful attention. 

From the first it should be remembered that Colonel Rose re- 
garded the work to be performed as a military operation rather 
than a tour of field duty. The correctness of his position was 
proven not only by later events in the history of the war, and of 
the work itself, but by the expressed opinion of every military 
authority who later came into contact with the work and methods 
of the First Provisional. 

The problem resolved itself into this: Guard the 267 vulner- 
able points of this artery so vital and necessary to the great Port 
of the City of New York with 1,200 men, most of whom must 
be necessarily green troops, and commanded by officers either 
drawn from reserve lists or new in the command of troops. 

At the outset the geographical factor loomed large. As a 
matter of fact, the geographical equation of the task performed 
by the First Provisional Regiment has been one of the most im- 
portant if not the most important things to be considered, and 
wherever in later days there was misunderstanding as to the needs 



i8 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

of the work it was largely due to inability on the part of those who 
questioned to appreciate this factor. The wanderings of the 
Aqueduct from the cloud-wreathed peaks of the 'Shokan to the 
lights of New York City have been described. It was to be a 
long line and a thin line as a result. More than that, it was to be 
a thin line full of vulnerable points. These vulnerable points must 
be protected as much as possible by artificial means that would 
aid the sentries and make patrol guarding possible at many 
places. Gratings for the culverts would go far toward solving 
this problem, and it was agreed by the representatives of the 
Department of Water Supply, Gas and Electricity, the Comptrol- 
ler's Office, and General Dyer, that the plan adopted by Colonel 
Rose and Inspector Cohalane of grating the culverts should be 
adopted by the city. The culverts and other vulnerable points 
were also to be lighted, and in this manner as much assistance 
given to the man on post as possible. 

But with all this, only incessant supervision and inspection 
could make possible such a task with such a number of men, and 
it was agreed upon that 8 large touring-cars, i8 light trucks and 
as many light touring-cars, 25 motorcycles and 80 bicycles were 
to be furnished the regiment immediately for necessary trans- 
portation. 

It enters this tale for the first time, a four-syllable word at the 
end of a more or less weighty paragraph, but before the last word 
of this history is told it will have assumed gigantic proportions 
— proportions which at times overshadowed all other consider- 
ations and all other propositions. It is no idle statement that on 
transportation depended the very life of the First Provisional 
Regiment, for this was repeatedly demonstrated. Scatter 1,200 
men, or 1,500 men, as the case may be, along 95 miles of territory, 
including somewhat more than 156 road miles of posts and out- 
posts, and you have only one answer — transportation. From the 
first it was evident that the transportation channels already pro- 
vided by public utilities, such as steam and electric roads and water 
courses, would be of little avail to the men of the First Provisional 
Regiment . . . the line followed by the New York Aqueduct was 
sufficient indication of that as the new commander of the Aque- 
duct forces looked at the maps laid before him by the represen- 
tatives of the City of New York. The great commerce-bearing 
course of the Hudson approximately paralleled the Aqueduct 
from its source to its outlet in the faucets and taps of New York 
City; the West Shore, the New York Central, the D. & H., the 
Walkill Valley Railroads, and the Harlem, Putnam and Main- 
line divisions of the New York Central all ran through the terri- 



MOBILIZATION 19 

tory in a general way, but with the exception of two or three 
isolated instances, none of these conveyors of the goods of man 
was of any service to the First Provisional in its work. In the 
broader and more wholesale way that interested the Regimental 
Supply Officer in the shipment of car-load lots to the two great 
distributing points of food and supplies — one at New Paltz and 
the other at Millwood — later at Peekskill, these routes were 
useful, but not for distribution to sectors. 

Transportation for the individual sector must of needs be fur- 
nished for the distribution of food to the various posts from the 
main headquarters. Scores of persons have argued the whys and 
wherefores of First Provisional transportation. There have been 
a thousand and one suggestions of those theorists who at one time 
and another sought to apply the rule of three to a proposition 
without precedent in the books or in service itself. But never 
yet has there been found a better plan than that which the Com- 
manding Officer outlined to the regimental and battalion supply 
officers and to the company commanders themselves in the early 
days of mobilization — ^''Feed the men." 

The beautiful plans and the wonderful theories of the arm- 
chair experts failed miserably time after time, but the slogan of 
"Feed the men" was carried out by the simple matter of food 
distribution. After all, there is only one way to feed men and 
that is to give them food. Men who are guarding 95 miles of ter- 
ritory cannot go after their subsistence to the regimental mess 
kitchen, nor can their company commanders stroll over to the 
Camp Quartermaster's Depot and make their selections. ^ The food 
must be taken to them. 

All this is a part of the premise that geographical conditions 
were far and away the biggest factor in the life of the First Pro- 
visional Regiment, and especially in regard to the vital question 
of transportation. The delivery of subsistence was but one phase 
of this. Food must be taken to the men, but the very nature of 
the line was such that only constant, careful, and adequate super- 
vision would make possible the covering of these 267 more or 
less vulnerable points of New York City's water supply with 
1,200 men. It was this point that Colonel Rose made clear to 
the minds of those men who gathered in General Dyer's office 
on the morning of August 6th. Inspector Cohalane needed no 
conviction on the matter — his mind was already made up. 

The transportation listed above was agreed upon, and the 
totals should be noted carefully. At the same time it was agreed 
that pending the delivery of this transportation, the Commanding 
Officer of the Regiment should have authority to hire such trans- 



20 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

portation as was necessary for the movement of troops and sup- 
plies until the promised vehicles should be delivered. 

But this solved only a part of the problem which Colonel Rose, 
as the Commanding Officer of the new organization, must face 
if the question were to be met successfully. With the factor of 
geography again militating against success there was the creation 
of regimental cohesion, regimental unity and organization con- 
sciousness absolutely necessary to the esprit de corps so vitally 
essential in such a work. From all parts of the State there were 
to be brought together all sorts and conditions of men from prac- 
tically every organization then extant. These were to be welded 
into an organization which of necessity was without tradition, 
without precedent, and without that organization consciousness 
so helpful to the regiment in the field, whether on the field of 
battle or the parade ground. It would not be sufficient to 
assemble these various parts into a great machine. The parts 
must become the machine, lose their identity in the machine, 
and think, work, and believe in the machine and for the machine 
only. 

Not that competition was not to be encouraged; not that these 
units were to be alienated permanently from their home organ- 
izations, but that their first loyalty, their first duty and their 
first thought must be for the body of which they were a working 
part. 

Why? Because there was a mission to perform, and without 
esprit de corps; without united effort; without team play, it 
could not be performed satisfactorily. There must be concerted 
action, support and team play. Every man in the new regiment 
must have but one idea in mind — to guard the Aqueduct of the 
City of New York efficiently, thoroughly, and every hour of the 
twenty-four. There must be this one big central thought if this 
operation were to be successful. 

To create this unity would be no easy task as the prospective 
Commanding Officer of the Regiment well knew as he laid his plans. 
The period of service was for the time indefinite, with a prepon- 
derance of opinion that it would be at the most of a few months' 
duration. The attitude of the times was significant and was re- 
flected in this belief. America, as yet unwakened by the smell 
of her own blood on the battle-fields of France, looked on in 
half indifference while her sons girded for the fight. German 
propaganda, never more rampant than at this period, sent forth 
the whisper that it would all be over before American boys could 
be hurt, and the agents of the Beast of Berlin fanned this whis- 
per to a half-expressed national hope that found voice, though 



MOBILIZATION 21 

furtively, as the nation prepared for war. Peace before par- 
ticipation was the attitude and its result was to be found 
everywhere. 

The results of this attitude were perhaps nowhere more ap- 
parent than in the armories from New York to Rochester and 
from Watertown to Binghamton, where the depot units which 
were to be called on for service on the Aqueduct hastened their 
recruiting. The call for National Guard enlistment, for army and 
naval service, and for officers' training-camps had taken a large 
percentage of the nation's natural fighters and adventurers. The 
lure of the job and the call of the dollar had not as yet given way 
to the clamor of war, and it was in this period of partial stagnation 
after the first leap of recruiting that the depot units sought to 
build up their forces for the service which was imminent. 

The departure of the National Guard from the State bid fair 
to strip the State of equipment and clothing for its new units, 
the majority of the troops entering the field for service with the 
First Provisional Regiment were but half equipped, despite 
the best efforts that could be made, and this in itself had a 
deterrent effect on recruiting. At home stations the ranks filled 
slowly. 

So that it was no certainty which faced Colonel Rose when he 
contemplated the problem that he had accepted as his. The 
future was anything but bright and under the best conditions the 
task was tremendous. Consider for a moment, now, the troops 
ordered into the field for initial mobilization, as described in the 
following table: 

From the ist Infantry 

Company Home Station Enlisted Men Officers 

A Utica 57 Capt. Alfred Broadbent 

1st Lt. Charles B. Cleary 
2nd Lt. George B. Snowden 
B Utica 37 Capt. Charles J. Lamb 

1st Lt. T. R. Hutton 
2nd Lt. Stuart Richards 
C Watertown 20 ist Lt. William J. Rivers 

(commissioned later) 
F Walton 40 Capt. Arthur E. Conner 

1st Lt. Rae C. Launt 
G Oneonta 20 ist Lt. F. M. H. Jackson 

H Binghamton 70 ist Lt. J. Roy Wilbur 

2nd Lt. Charles H. Hinman 



22 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

From the ioth Infantry 

Company Home Station Enlisted Men Officers 

F Hudson 115 Capt. Benedict GifFord 

1st Lt. Edw. L. Harder 
2nd Lt. Tremain McKinstry 



Company 
A 



B 



From the i2Th Infantry 

Home Station Enlisted Men Officers 

New York 80 Capt. Howland Pell 

1st Lt. Irving Ussicker 
2nd Lt. Arthur Wynne 
New York 82 Capt. Ernest Van Zandt 

1st Lt. Edward Strauss 
2nd Lt. Edward J. Murphy 



From the 69TH Infantry 

Company Home Station Enlisted Men Officers 

A New York 50 Capt. John J. Roche 



From the Veteran Corps of Artillery 



Company Home Station 
Provisional ] 



Battery A j 

Provisional ) 
Battery B ) 



New York 



New York 



Enlisted Men Officers 

Capt. S. Edson Gage 
115 1st Lt. Theodore T. Lane 
1st Lt. Raymond L. Taft 
Capt. Adam T. Shurick 
84 1st Lt. John M. Perry 

2nd Lt. Electus T. Backus 



From the ist Field Artillery 

Company Home Station Enlisted Men Officers 

Battery C Binghamton 100 Capt. John W. Johnson 

1st Lt. Otis D. Eaton 
2nd Lt. Carl Robinson 



From the qth C. A. C. 

Company Home Station Enlisted Men Officers 

4th Co. New York 50 Capt. John M. Thompson 



MOBILIZATION 23 

From the 7TH Infantry 

Company Home Station Enlisted Men Officers 

C New York 40 Capt. James R. Stewart 

1st Lt. Francis D. Clark 
2nd Lt. Edwin M. Leask 

From the ist Cavalry 

Company Home Station Enlisted Men Officers 

Troop B Albany 68 Capt. Maurice Damon 

1st Lt. F. M. Van Nouhuys 
2nd Lt. Edgar B. Clerk 
Troop H Rochester 40 ist Lt. Howard Converse 

2nd Lt. William C. Barry 

Barely over 1,000 men for initial effort, and for the most part 
green troops officered by men from all points of the compass, most 
of them unknown to the Commanding Officer. This was the 
State's total reserve and was all that could be obtained at that 
time. 

The organization names used in this table are those which were 
effective at the time of the entry of the First Provisional Regiment 
into the field and before the reorganization of the State forces 
which resulted in the New York Guard. 

The Veteran Corps of Artillery, which in this emergency fur- 
nished a provisional battalion with organization complete, com- 
manded by Major W. L. Hodges, with ist Lt. Frank L. Davidson 
as Adjutant and 2nd Lt. H. Pushae Williams as Supply Officer, 
had never before been called into State service, although this 
organization, one of the oldest in the State, had for some time 
been subject to State call. It should be said at this time that the 
service which the men of the Veteran Corps of Artillery performed 
was invaluable. Of them and their trials more will be told later. 

At the New York State Arsenal, while in conference with 
Colonel Myers, Colonel Rose had met Major William L. Burnett, 
formerly of the loth Infantry, who was then serving as camp 
quartermaster in the first of the great cadet camps established 
by the State of New York under the Military Training Commis- 
sion at Peekskill. In this way the man who as second in command 
was to play such a prominent part in the life of the organization 
first came in contact with it and was at that time informed by 
Colonel Rose that his services would be needed with the Aque- 
duct Regiment immediately upon completion of the task at 



24 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 



1 



Peekskill. At the same time Colonel Rose met Capt. L. B. De 
Garmo of the 14th Infantry, a supply officer with Border experi- 
ence, and, at the recommendation of Colonel Myers, took Captain 
De Garmo for his Supply Officer. Captain De Garmo also acted 
as Adjutant until August 12th. With him came Lt. Elmer H. 
Miller, an Oklahoman of Border experience who had served with 
Captain De Garmo in the Mexican trouble. 

On August 6th there issued from the office of the Adjutant- 
General, then Louis W. Stotesbury, Special Orders No. 198, 
which created the First Provisional Regiment, placed Colonel 
Rose at the head of it and directed that he confer with the officials 
of the City of New York and the Chief Quartermaster of the 
State as to the distribution of the troops and their care. It is 
printed in full herewith: 

State of New York 

The Adjutant-General's Office 

Albany 

August 6, 1917. 
Special Orders j 
No. 198 ! 

I. It having been made to appear to the Governor that 
in the state of war now existing, grave danger is appre- 
hended and exists as to the safety of property and public 
utilities of the City of New York and more particularly 
the water system of said city and that there is imminent 
danger of attempts being made to destroy and injure said 
property and of breaches of the peace, tumult and riot in 
connection with such attempts and the Mayor of the 
said City of New York having requested the Governor to 
order out a sufficient military force of the State iji aid 
of the civil authorities, in accordance with the provisions 
of law, I do, by virtue of the Constitution and Laws of the 
State, order out the following military forces of the State 
for the protection of said property and public utilities. 

A provisional regiment of infantry of 12 com- 
panies to be formed of detachments of organizations 
of the Military forces of the State to be selected 
by the officer hereinafter designated to command 
same and to consist of not to exceed 53 officers and 
1200 enlisted men of appropriate grades, including 
a sanitary detachment of 4 officers and 10 men. 



MOBILIZATION 25 

2. The detachments composing said provisional regiment 
to be designated as above set forth will be assembled at their 
respective armories at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, August 7th, 
1917, under orders of the Commanding Officer of said 
regiment and will take over the guarding of said property 
at 6 P.M., Friday, August loth, 1917. 

3. Colonel John B. Rose, ist Infantry, New York Guard, 
is hereby detailed to active duty and will at once assume 
command of the troops ordered out under this order. He 
will confer with the Mayor of the City of New York as to 
the disposition of troops to guard said property, and with 
the Chief Quartermaster, State Quartermaster Corps, 
State Arsenal, 463 Seventh Avenue, New York City, as to 
subsistence and transportation for his command. Five 
days' rations will be purchased locally and taken in the 
field with troops placed on duty under this order. 

4. Commutation of rations at the rate of 75 cents per day 
is authorized wherever it is impracticable to furnish rations 
in kind. Wherever cooking facilities are available rations 
in kind will be issued at the rate of 52 cents per day. 

5. The Chief Quartermaster, State Quartermaster Corps, 
will issue the necessary transportatit)n. 

6. No debts will be contracted or obligations incurred 
except as expressly authorized by orders from this office. 
No horses will be hired without like authority. The re- 
quirements of the Military Law and Regulations will be 
strictly followed in all purchases. 

By Command of the Governor, 
Louis W. Stotesbury, 

The Adjutant-General. 
Official: 

Edward J. Westcott 
Major, Asst. to the Adjutant-General. 

There have been many discussions at one time and another 
as to the broad powers which this order bestowed upon the Com- 
manding Officer of the First Provisional Regiment. It is doubtful 
whether an order less embracing in its scope would have met 
the conditions with which the First Provisional Regiment was 
obliged to cope time and again throughout its existence. S. O. 
198 was, as freely translated by the Commanding Officer of the 
First Provisional Regiment, tantamount to a charter. The one 
feature ih it which militated against the full comfort of the men 
of the regiment — ^the 52-cent ration allowance — was later rem- 



26 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

edied and a 65-cent ration was authorized, and still later, a full 
75-cent ration. 

It should be noted that the choice of the units which were to 
comprise the First Provisional Regiment was left to the Com- 
manding Officer — something new in the history of mobilization 
orders, but made necessary by the very military exigencies of the 
time. The State of New York, face to face with an unprecedented 
situation, had to meet it in an unprecedented manner. There 
was but one thing to do — cut red tape and secure the answer, and 
this was done by Governor Whitman. 



PART II 
Concentration 

Friday, August loth, was the time set on which the line of the 
New York City Water System was to be taken over from the 
National Guard troops then on duty. In view of the fact that 
the troops which were to be called into the field were for the most 
part without field training. Colonel Rose determined to give as 
much time as possible for field acclimation, and as a result, 
warning orders went out to all units on the 5th and 6th. On the 
night of the 7th, orders were sent out to the units which were 
to move from up-State on the 8th. 

Captain De Garmo had been sent north to locate a mobilization 
point for the units which were to take over the sector of the 
Aqueduct on the western side of the Hudson, then covered by 
the loth and 47th Infantry, and Troop A, ist Squadron Cavalry. 
The unoccupied Lambert farm on the bluffs above Highland had 
been selected as the most desirable place and as a result there 
detrained at Highland on the afternoon of August 8th Companies 
A and B of the ist Infantry from Utica, and Troop B from 
Albany, first of the units of the First Provisional Regiment to 
arrive for that service, which covered a period of more than 18 
months, in which the fate of the world was settled. 

These units, marching up through Highland, with Troop B 
leading, debouched in a hayfield just opposite the Lambert House 
and awaited orders and tentage, about 4 o'clock in the afternoon. 

From even a casual glance, the expert could have told at once 
of the situation faced by the State of New York in that, its time 
of greatest need. The men of Troop B, of Albany, organized for 
some little time and close to the source of supply, were well- 
equipped and ready for practically any kind of field duty. The 



MOBILIZATION 27 

men of Company A came next on the scale, cared for in so far as 
uniforms went, for the most part, but in sad need of everything 
else, while the men of Company B were pathetic in their civilian- 
military attire. Some had hats and hats only, others were blessed 
with uniform blouses which, in combination with civilian trousers, 
lent a Mexican Army atmosphere to the picture, while still others 
were uniformed throughout excepting hats— and wore derbies. 
Practically every man in the company carried a paper bundle or 
a bag. They had no blankets, some were without ponchos, and 
none had cots. They sat down on the slope which ran up from 
the hayfield to the public highway and waited for something 
to happen. Their officers gathered in a knot in the center 
of the field and discussed the probabilities of the baggage 
arriving. 

Lieut. Elmer H. Miller had been assigned to the work of estab- 
lishing the camp at Lambert Farm, and it was he who met the 
incoming troops, guided them to their destination and made 
provisions for getting to the camp such baggage as they had. 
As a matter of fact, Troop B, under command of Captain Maurice 
Damon, was the only unit to enter camp that night with any large 
amount of baggage. It was the Troop B range and five days' 
travel ration that saved the situation at Lambert Farm. Captain 
Damon placed his entire equipment at the disposal of the other 
units, and with details drawn from each company for wood and 
cooking, supper was started as soon as the field range came up 
from the railroad. 

About 6 o'clock the first of the trucks placed at the disposal 
of Colonel Rose by Colonel Myers arrived with the first of the 
tentage and it was while the white balls of canvas were rolling off 
the truck in the late afternoon light that the yellow Pathfinder of 
the Commanding Officer, which was to play such a large part in 
the early days of the regiment, boomed up the private road to 
the hayfield. The cogs of regimental history engaged as Colonel 
Rose met the first of his command. 

Captain Charles J. Lamb, commanding Company B, ist In- 
fantry, was placed in command of the camp by the Commanding 
Officer, who, after indicating what equipment and supplies were 
on the way, left for the south with the information that he would 
return the following morning. 

Before Colonel Rose went. Company F, loth Infantry of Hudson, 
came in, 115 strong, under command of Capt. Benedict Gifford, 
and was assigned to transversal streets at the lower end of the 
camp. Troop B was given the Number One street parallel to 
the private right of way, Company B the second street and Com- 



28 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

pany A the third. While the cooking-fires crackled about the 
single field range the white conicals rose in the twilight. 

There was but one axe in the camp, with never a maul or a 
mallet, and had these first men of the First Provisional waited for 
axes they would have slept under the stars that night. Popular 
opinion gives to Sergeant Stanley Soltys of Company B the credit 
for discovering that stone walls could be used in the erection of 
tents. Within five minutes after the first pegs were hammered 
in with the weapons of the Stone Age, rocks were the fashion 
all over the camp and the conicals went up fast. There was but 
one drawback. Most of the crude hammers were left where they 
were last used, and there is at least one officer in the First Pro- 
visional Regiment who still carries a scar as the result of a night 
tumble over one of the primitive mauls. 

The trucks which carried the cots did not arrive, but there was 
a quantity of fairly dry hay available and the up-State men car- 
ried it into the tents in great armfuls, using the dryest of it to sleep 
on and the rest for floor covering. About this time the first of the 
food was ready, and the scanty supper was dealt out from the fires. 
It was not much of a meal, as meals go, but it stopped the stomach 
pangs and made sleep easier. By the time it was about over the 
detachment from Company C, Watertown, marched into camp 
and had to be fed. 

Company F of Hudson did the first actual guard duty of the 
First Provisional Regiment, for the guard was drawn that night 
from Company F. The guard-house was originally established 
by the pump-house just in rear of the officers' quarters, but later 
by the gate at the entrance to the farm. 

Speaking of the pump-house; if there was one thing with which 
the first Camp Rose, for so it was named by Captain Lamb, was 
blessed, it was an abundance of water, somewhat mineral in 
nature, but clean and pure, that poured in a two-inch stream from 
the artesian well below the concrete pump-house. One of the first 
details of the new camp was the pump detail. 

Like all first-night camps, it was a more or less noisy and un- 
settled proposition until along toward midnight, although Troop 
B's trumpeter blew an early Tattoo. Most of the officers worked 
over their records until late, and at varied intervals throughout 
the night the trucks continued to arrive. 

There was little sleep, and the wonder is that there was any at 
all, for nine out of every ten men were blanketless and the only 
cots in the camp were the private ones. This is colloquial and 
not military; the cots belonged to officers. 

During the night a slight rain set in, and it was anything 



MOBILIZATION 29 

but cheerful in the bare tents. The morning dawned wet and 
nasty, turned to cold gray and stayed that way until about noon. 
But despite it all there was not a sniffle in the entire camp, and 
while everybody was a bit stiff and tired, the only real trouble 
came from spider bites. Company F picked up a couple of 
nasty ones and one of them went over to Highland for treatment 
in Colonel Rose's car later in the morning. 

The breakfast was a meager proposition, with wash-basins as 
the only mess kits and the menu rather slim. Just after it was 
finished Colonel Rose arrived, bringing with him Inspector 
Cohalane of the New York Police Department, a quiet, keen-eyed 
little man in gray woolens and gray cap, who surveyed the officers 
as he met them, each in a long, sweeping look that missed not a 
detail. 

Officers' Call brought the commissioned personnel of the camp 
to Capt. Lamb's tent, where a full-length skeleton blueprint of 
the Aqueduct hung, together with a chart map of the lower end 
of the line. 

And while the officers stood about the door of the tent the 
Commanding Officer painted the first of what was known in 
later days as "The Big Picture," the picture of the mission which 
had been assigned to the First Provisional Regiment. 

He told first of the needs of a great city and the millions of 
gallons of water flowing daily through the shell of the Aqueduct; 
he explained the culvert and its vulnerability; the necessity for 
constant inspection of all parts of a vulnerable point; the danger 
point of the siphon-house and the other Aqueduct structures; 
and then the method by which he proposed to guard it with the 
1,200 men that were to take the place of 3,700 men at 6 o'clock 
the next evening. 

The line of the Aqueduct had been cut into five divisions — 
A, B, C, D, and E, each division to be in charge of two captains, 
who would have joint responsibility for their division, in so far 
as the safety of it was concerned, though property responsibility 
would be divided and not borne jointly. At no time could both 
captains be away from their line. Their lieutenants would be 
in charge of the sub-sectors and would be held accountable for 
the condition of each sub-sector. The captains' chief duty was 
to be that of inspection; paper work was to be minimized, and 
the captains were to sleep at each outpost on their lines. 

An Inspecting Major, Colonel Rose explained, would have 
charge of each side of the river, his headquarters any place where 
night overtook him, and his office in his automobile. Only in- 
cessant inspection would result in the answer he was after. Colonel 



30 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

Rose told the listening officers. It was to be the hardest kind of 
work for the officers — harder for them than for the men, and if 
there were any who were not prepared for the heaviest work of 
their existence he wanted to know it then and there. 

"In most military organizations it is conceded that the private 
has the hardest job, the corporal the next hardest, and so on, 
up until when you get into the senior commissioned officers it is 
thought to be a comparatively easy thing," he told his hearers; 
"but in this organization that scheme will be reversed. It is 
the enlisted man who will have the easier job than the officer, 
and the higher the officer the harder he must work. The nearer 
you get to Regimental Headquarters the faster you'll find the 
wheels spinning and the harder will be the work. We are not 
out here for a tour of duty; we are out here to perform a mission, 
and we expect to do it the best we know how. There will be no 
big headquarters company, no band, no concerts, no show. 
Everything throughout this regiment will be on the basis of 
actual field service and that is all." 

Then he indicated where the troops were to go — Company F 
of the loth, under Captain Gifford, and the detachment of Com- 
pany C of Watertown on the lower end of Division D, from Vails 
Gate to St. Elmo; Troop H of Rochester, which had been delayed, 
from St. Elmo to the Walkill Siphon; and Troop B on to Bonticou 
Tunnel. For the first movement Companies A and B of Utica 
would take over Division E, although Company H of Bingham- 
ton, which was to arrive that afternoon, was to be sent in at the 
Peak as soon as it had been given a breathing spell in the field. 

The officers were directed to go to the various sectors which they 
were to occupy and make a physical inspection of the various 
posts, securing all information possible from the commanding 
officers of the outgoing troops. 

There was a certain amount of psychological danger in this, 
for those officers were to command smaller forces than those who 
were leaving. For instance, the sector between the Vails Gate and 
the Walkill Pressure Tunnel was covered by Companies E, F, 
G and H of the 47th Infantry and Troop A, ist Squadron, ist 
New York Cavalry. The remainder of the Aqueduct on the west 
side of the Hudson was covered by Company E, ist Infantry, 
Companies A, C and D of the loth Infantry. But the officers 
were warned that they must not attempt comparisons in numer- 
ical strength; their disposition of forces must be based on what 
they actually had, not what they might think they should 
have. 

When Colonel Rose finished speaking he introduced Inspector 



MOBILIZATION 31 

Cohalane, who took up the matter of posts and guard-duty tours. 
The Police Department of the City of New York had worked out 
a table of eight-hour duty which resulted, he said, in benefit to 
the men on the job, and it was at his suggestion that Colonel 
Rose had agreed to adoption of the eight-on-sixteen-ofF plan of 
guard duty as far as applicable to the service on hand. The 
Inspector told of the need of vigilance, indicated what might be 
expected in the way of an attempt to destroy the Aqueduct and 
reiterated the importance of the duty. 

Just before mess-time Colonel Rose went to Highland. The 
transportation promised by the city had not arrived and he was 
not altogether satisfied with the speed at which supplies and 
equipment were being received. Following a vigorous half-hour 
of long-distance telephone conferences with General Dyer, State 
Camp, Captain De Garmo and the Adjutant-General's Office, the 
Commanding Officer returned for mess, and immediately after 
mess the men of the various units were gathered in the shade 
near the private highway for their first inoculation — the inocu- 
lation of that esprit de corps which was to take the First Pro- 
visional Regiment through the trials of the coming days. 

And the inoculation "took" as it had with the officers earlier 
in the day. It was perhaps the first campaign in history where 
the rank and file of an organization were at the outset taken into 
the full confidence of their Commanding Officer as to his aims 
and plans, but the results among the men at Camp Rose, as well 
as among those of the other concentration camp at Peekskill, 
showed the wisdom of it. Although those who looked on and 
listened did not realize it, they were watching the first steps in the 
welding of regimental whole, and the inspiration of a regimental 
consciousness. 

The picture of that first big men's conference is one that will 
always remain with those who saw it — rank after rank of up- 
turned faces rising along the slight slope that dropped from the 
road to the field beneath the shade of the big trees, each face 
earnest and intent before five minutes had elapsed, as the men 
caught the spirit of the speaker; the gathering enthusiasm which 
finally began to make itself manifest in cheers and the final big 
cheer that pledged the men of the Second Battalion to their regi- 
mental commander and his associates in the big work. 

Immediately after the meeting Colonel Rose left for Peekskill 
State Camp, which had been selected as the mobilization point 
for the troops which were to cover the line on the east side of the 
river. 



32 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

Major William L. Burnett, loth Infantry, Camp Quartermaster 
at Peekskill in the closing days of the Cadet Camp of 1917, had 
learned in twenty-five years of National Guard service to be sur- 
prised at nothing, but all his learning received a severe shock when 
at about 11 o'clock or a bit after, on the morning of August 9th, 
the head of a column of infantry with baggage swung from the 
hilly road into the Peekskill parade ground. 

Major Burnett knew in a general way that the Peekskill State 
Camp was to be used as a mobilization point for a portion of the 
new regiment that was to take over the Aqueduct, but through 
one of those mysterious slip-ups that will happen once in a while 
in military life, he had not been informed as to just when they 
were due. Hence the surprise. 

He had just finished taking down the last of the tents the 
cadets of the Military Training Commission had been using and 
was getting down to the endless detail that confronts the camp 
quartermaster on any and every occasion, when he was informed 
that a column was marching into the place. 

The unit consisted of the provisional battalion furnished by the 
Veteran "Corps Artillery, commanded by Major W. L. Hodges 
with 1st Lieut. Frank Davidson Adjutant, and 2nd Lieut. H. P. 
Williams, Supply Officer, together with Companies A and B, 
1 2th Infantry, totaling 159 men, with Captain Howland Pell 
in command as senior officer, Company A, 69th Infantry, Cap- 
tain John J. Roche commanding, and Company C, 7th Infantry, 
Capt. J. R. Stewart commanding. This contingent had left New 
York about 7.30 a.m., arriving at Roahook about ii o'clock. 

If Lambert Farm furnished material for humor, there was even 
more of it at Peekskill, largely due to the fact that there were more 
possibilities for it. In the first place, there was the element of 
surprise and uncertainty that always makes for excitement, and 
in the second place, a large number of the men in the Peekskill 
mobilization were men of wealth and position, serving as privates, 
corporals, and sergeants in the ranks of the Veteran Corps of 
Artillery, who had seen no active service before, but who were 
enthusiastic to the point of breakage. 

The mobilization at Peekskill opened like the first scene in a 
military musical comedy. Major Burnett was seated at his desk 
when there entered Lieut. -Colonel John Ross Delafield of the 
Veteran Corps. It was Colonel Delafield's first experience as 
such with troops in the field. It was Major Burnett's thirty-first 
— ^or something like that. Colonel Delafield did not know Major 
Burnett. Major Burnett had never heard of Colonel Delafield. 

"Who's in charge here.?" asked the V. C. A. Officer. 



MOBILIZATION 33 

"I am," replied the Major, after the formalities had been ex- 
changed. 

"I am Colonel Delafield. How about food for my men out 
here?" 

''I don't know, I'm sure. Where are these men from, who are 
they, and what are they doing here?" queried the Camp Quarter- 
master. 

Colonel Delafield snorted with disgust. "They are a provisional 
battalion from the Veteran Corps of Artillery here to take over 
the Aqueduct. What stores have you for them?" 

"Ice and toilet-paper," said Major Burnett gravely. 

"Ice and toilet-paper! Men can't live on ice and toilet-paper! 
You will order one thousand dollars' worth of rations at once!" 

For the second time that day Major Burnett registered sur- 
prise. "But, Colonel Delahoyd," said he, "I can't do that without 
orders from the Adjutant-General." 

"Not Delahoyd — Delafield," snapped the other. "Why can't 
you? I'll give you all the authority you want." 

"Fm sorry, but I can only accept orders for purchase from the 
Adjutant-General." 

"Well, let me talk with the Adjutant-General. These men have 
got to have food." 

The call went in for the Adjutant-General, and while Colonel 
Delafield explained the situation to General Stotesbury, Major 
Burnett pondered on the mysteries of the civilian entering mili- 
tary life. Finally Colonel Delafield turned from the 'phone. 

"That's all right. You're to go ahead and get three thousand 
dollars' worth of food." 

Major Burnett smiled. 

"But, Colonel Delahoyd—" 

"Delafield!" 

"Oh yes. Well, Colonel Delafield, I'm sorry, but I have to 
have those orders from the Adjutant-General or his representative 
before I can purchase anything." 

"Well, what's the matter with what I told you?" 

The telephone bell rang. Colonel Myers had heard from 
the A.-G. His salutation to Major Burnett went something 
like this: 

"What in hell is Delafield telling the A.-G..?" 

Major Burnett was embarrassed. He attempted to explain 
the matter. Colonel Delafield sat at his elbow and Colonel Myers 
was talking in strident tones. 

The sparks flew and danced at the other end of the wire, with 
the name of Delafield dancing among them. 



34 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

"Yes, yes," stammered Major Burnett. "Colonel Delafield is 
right here now." 

"Well, tell him to !" 

"Yes, I certainly will," floundered the embarrassed Major. 
"He is right here now," he added in warning. But Colonel Myers 
was past warning; he was mad. 

"With my compliments," he added, and jangled ofF. 

Major Burnett turned. 

"Now, Colonel Delahoyd," said he. 

"My name isn't Delahoyd, it's Delafield. Colonel John Ross 
Delafield, V. C. A., and I wish you'd stop calling me Delahoyd. 
I don't like it. I've got to leave now for a war council in New 
York if you've got this thing fixed. Good-by, sir." And he left. 

Major Burnett took a deep breath. Said a voice from the door: 

"How about tentage for these men?" 

It was Major Hodges, and he was advised that if the men would 
go to the storehouse they could get plenty of tents. 

So the V. C. A, furnished a detail of mule-drivers and things 
progressed. Before dark the conicals were again rising on the 
Peekskill plain to an accompaniment of all of the first-night 
comedy which falls to the lot of a military camp, plus the in- 
genious efforts of brokers, bankers and railroad presidents in the 
matter of camp-making, cooking and K. P. 

Probably there was never a time in the military history of the 
State when men well along in years did the work which the elite 
of the V. C. A. did on this and the following days of the V. C. A. 
service. They had been styled as "Silk-hat-Harrys," but 
they disproved it in splendid fashion, though at what cost of 
blistered hands and aching arms and legs they alone knew. Their 
ranks were full of the possibilities for funny situations, and there 
is none on record funnier than that of the bank president who had 
his office-boy as corporal of his squad. 

Colonel Rose arrived at Peekskill in the yellow Pathfinder about 
the middle of the afternoon of August 9th, and after looking over 
the situation was satisfied that things were going as well as could 
be expected, all hindrances taken into consideration. It was about 
this time, as he was standing in front of the Camp Quartermaster's 
tent, that he was accosted by an elderly gentleman garbed as a 
V. C. A. private. 

"Hello, Ja — I mean good afternoon. Colonel," said the private, 
his voice traveling in a sliding scale from jovial familiarity to 
formal respect. 

Greetings were exchanged and then the private, who was a 
business friend of Colonel Rose's, said: 



MOBILIZATION 35 

"You know, Fve got the funniest situation you ever saw. About 
three months ago I got my office-boy to join the Battery. Well, 
he's been attending drills and I haven't. Consequently he's a 
corporal. I'm a private." 

"That's good stuflF," said the Colonel. 

"But you haven't heard the best of it yet. The funniest part 
of it is that I'm a private in his squad." 

A short time later Colonel Rose sent word for the corporal in 
question to report at his tent. 

"I understand," said he, "that your business associate is a 
member of your squad." 

"Well, sir, you wouldn't exactly call him a business associate. 
He's my boss." 

"You understand that this is a military proposition and that 
no favoritism can be shown to a private by a non-commissioned 
officer, no matter what relative positions the two might occupy 
in civil life." 

"Yes, sir." 

"Now I want you to be sure that your attitude in this matter 
is not influenced by the fact that this private is your employer 
in civil life. He should do just as much hard work as any one else 
— perhaps a little more, just so it will be certain that no one can 
accuse you of favoritism." Colonel Rose spoke seriously, but 
there was a glint in his eye which those who came to know him 
better in later days learned as a signal of mischief afoot for some 
one. 

"Yes, sir," replied the corporal. "I'll remember, sir." 

"Very well; you may go." 

The corporal saluted, turned to the door and then returned. 

"Yes?" said the Colonel, as the boy saluted. 

"Excuse me, sir, but I just happened to think of something. 
There's a ditch that's got to be dug around that tent of mine. 
Would it be all right if — " 

"It certainly would. I think that would be a very good start." 

The corporal went away. 

And in the twilight, as Colonel Rose walked through that com- 
pany street, he came upon one whose corpulency bent and bulged 
to staccato grunts above a pickax that now and again dented the 
sun-baked iron of the Peekskill parade ground. 

And he who grunted addressed his pickax in this fashion as the 
Colonel passed. 

"Just wait till I get out of here." 

And grinned. 



36 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

That afternoon the Commanding Officer painted for the officers 
of the Peekskill camp the same picture that he had given to those 
who were at Lambert Farm. And the officers caught with the 
same enthusiasm as their fellows on the other side of the river the 
big idea of the job. 

The entire Aqueduct on the eastern side of the river was covered 
by units of the 23rd Regiment. It was to be taken over under 
the orders of the Adjutant-General at 6 o'clock on the following 
day, and the distribution of troops was explained to the officers. 

To the Veteran Corps of Artillery was assigned the entire sec- 
tion of the line from Kensico influent southward to Hillview, 
while the 7th Infantry Company was given from Sarles Hill 
to and including the Kensico influent. The 12th Infantry com- 
panies and the 9th C. A. C, which had arrived during the day, 
were given the next section north to the Peekskill siphon; the 69th 
and the unit of what was then the ist Field Artillery, from 
Binghamton, which had also arrived later than the first contin- 
gent, were to take the remainder of the Aqueduct as far as the 
Hudson River. 

Although this plan was slightly changed during the organiza- 
tion period, due to the necessity for stretching or contracting of 
companies to meet the man-power situation, it represents the 
general territorial responsibility that maintained for some weeks, 
and the more detailed responsibility will be indicated in the order 
of distribution which appears later. 

It was on the night of the 9th of August that the First Pro- 
visional Regiment entered its first engagement and met its first 
real enemy, face to face at close quarters, for it was on that night 
that the Junior Cot entered regimental life. 

In the days of knight-errantry they who would achieve the 
accolade passed through some mighty test and slept on their 
arms before going forth to do conquest. The First Provisional 
Regiment had its first night of errantry, too — very errant — and 
slept on its arms — and other places. 

The cots looked innocent enough when they were unpacked 
from the trucks at Highland and Peekskill. They were white, 
they were new, the canvas looked soft, and, taken by and large, 
though they were anything but large, they seemed mightily in- 
viting to tired men. They looked well when they were set up, too. 

But — they were a scant five feet in length and they were pur- 
chased for boys of 80 and 100 pounds — not men, young and old, 
of from 130 to 190 pounds. 

And when the men of the First Provisional laid their forms on 
those racks of torment on that first memorable night there were 



MOBILIZATION 37 

sundry creakings, settlings and bendings as the cots gradually gave 
way beneath the strain for which they were never intended, and 
sagged toward mother earth. At first there was no discomfort, but 
the initial roll or toss started it — ^the nasty, mean, uncomfortable 
feeling of a steel brace projecting through canvas and into one's 
back. This phase was followed by the breaking period, wherein 
sticks snapped promiscuously or where canvas tore. The steel 
braces and the wire stays had a disagreeable way of poking through 
and clinging to one's clothes when one attempted to roll or rise. 

The most devilish thing about them was the shortness of them. 
Invariably the lower legs and feet hung uncomfortably over the 
end at first, and then as the cot descended earthward beneath the 
weight, lay on the damp ground. One might coil up, and on such 
an occasion the southwest corner of the cot coiled up too, tilting 
the sleeper unceremoniously out. They gave and they broke; 
they twined themselves lovingly around the forms of those who 
would sleep, and ever the crosspieces gridded those who lay upon 
them with full weight. 

Ramah was a quiet country village after bedtime compared 
with Peekskill and Lambert Farm on that first night of the reign 
of the Junior Cot. That dynasty, it may be added, continued for 
more than a month before the necessary motions could be made 
to secure man-sized sleeping equipment. More than any one 
other thing, the Junior Cot gave color to form and expression in 
those early days of the regiment's history. 

There is still one perfectly preserved copy in existence, saved 
from the discard at the time when the Gold Medals came in. 
Future generations may pause and admire in the State museum 
that descendant of the Inquisition Rack which during the great 
war bobbed up with serene atavism in the ranks of the First 
Provisional Regiment. 

It is an even chance that one cannot even at this day exhibit a 
Junior Cot in any large assemblage in New York City without 
having at least one person in the audience who could explain in 
minutest detail the hideous torture of the species. 

Now, while the men at Peekskill twist and writhe in the tor- 
tures of the early morning of August loth, the reader must skip 
back to Lambert Farm in the Hudson bluffs above Highland, 
where, since the departure of Colonel Rose, Troop H of Rochester 
has arrived under the command of Lieut. Converse. It has been 
a night of restless slumber, for many of the late arrivals are still 
without cots or blankets, among these one who is to later play a 
very important part in the first days of the First Provisional's 
history. Later, his round, beaming face, gold-bowed glasses and 



38 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

gray hair are to become familiar to every company post on the 
line; but to-night, still undiscovered by the powers, he lies cold 
and comfortless in one of the conicals at the lower end of the 
camp and close — very close — to the latrines, from which a soft 
wind is blowing. 

Even now he is beginning to exhibit those characteristics which 
in later days brought upon him the title of Rustler Supremus 
Magnus, the only title of its kind ever conferred by the regiment. 
In the guard-house are cots and blankets. In liberty there is 
only discomfort, and so Private H. W. Speares of Troop H rises 
and wanders about the camp in suspicious fashion until picked 
up by the guard. Fifteen minutes later and he is chuckling 
drowsily beneath three blankets in the guard-house while his 
tent-mates shiver at the lower end of the camp. 



PART III 

Distribution 

Four o'clock comes and with it the lark notes of First Call at 
Lambert Farm and the incessant pound of Reveille. Before 
5 o'clock the canvas peaks have melted to round balls, the baggage 
is piled and the last detachment to move is racing from the mess- 
lines to company streets where Assembly is blowing. Companies 
A and B of Utica and Troop B move off on the double toward the 
station at Highland and with them goes Company F of the loth, 
the last named to move by truck. 

Only the baggage details remain behind to load the trucks that 
are to distribute the equipment of these men along the entire line 
of the Second Battalion. This is the loth. At 6 o'clock to-night 
the line of the Aqueduct is to be taken over, although word comes 
from the 47th that no orders have been received by it to move out. 

At Peekskill the yellow Pathfinder is busy in the early morning 
hours bringing up ham and eggs for the first real meal of the men 
mobilized on the east side of the river. At the entrance to the 
camp Colonel Rose meets Sergeant Martin. 

"How many eggs have you on there?" 

"Thirty dozen and eight hams." 

"Dump those off here and go back and get the same amount 
more," and back goes the Pathfinder after more food. 

And so they of the stiff backs and uncomfortable legs get a real 
breakfast in the big mess-hall. Filled to overflowing, they lean 



MOBILIZATION 39 

back and, like the men of Lambert Farm, hear the story of the 
Big Job from the lips of the Commanding Officer. And like the 
men of Lambert Farm they cheer and cheer again, till the old 
mess-hall shakes with the spirit that is to grip the vital artery of 
the world^s great heart and hold it safe from its enemies. 

The final orders are given for the departure of troops and the 
company streets begin to dissolve. No reserve is to be held here, 
for the line is to be taken over at 6 o'clock and there is barely a 
sufficient force to do it. These commanding officers have had 
little or no opportunity to survey the lines that they are to cover. 
They accept their assignments with nods, as though they knew 
full well the difficulties of Breakneck and Cat Hill, and the wide 
sweep of the Croton, the Kensico, and the Hillview reservoirs, 
when as a matter of fact these are for the most part merely names, 
that mean nothing to them except their mission. 

By trains and trucks they move out to their appointed places 
while the yellow Pathfinder turns its nose northward to Lambert 
Farm. 

There the Commanding Officer meets the officers who have 
arrived since his departure, and just after noon hoists into his 
car a young First Lieutenant who has but the night before been 
made Battalion Adjutant, to accompany him as aide on his 
journey. The dust rises behind the wheels of the Pathfinder on 
the Lambert Farm road and the Colonel is away to watch the 
culmination of the hours of mobilization. 

At the headquarters of the loth Infantry at New Paltz, where 
the pup tents of the headquarters and supply companies bespeak 
an early departure and where the standards before the Com- 
manding Officer's tent slap idly in the breeze from the mountains, 
the yellow car pauses while the Colonel and his aide learn of the 
progress that is being made along the line. 

It is 4.30 o'clock in the afternoon, and from the various stations 
come the reports of the arrival of new troops. At some points on 
the western side of the river they have been on since 9 o'clock. At 
places on the eastern side of the river they have been on since noon. 

Then it is that General Dyer and General Stotesbury at Albany 
get the report for which they have been clamoring for the last 
twenty-four hours in a vain endeavor to locate Colonel Rose. 

"Our men are all on the line and will take over at 6 o'clock" is 
the word to General Dyer. It appears that on Wednesday 300 
men of the 14th relieved the 47th men at Cornwall and they have 
received no orders to move. The City of New York has not de- 
livered the bicycles, motorcycles and cars promised and General 
Dyer is informed: 



40 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

"The City of New York must live up to its agreement or you 
will have to send 2,000 more men. These men are ready to do 
triple duty for 48 hours if necessary, but it is up to the City of 
New York to make good." 

The necessary instructions are sent out for the distribution of 
ammunition and mess kits; and then the Pathfinder goes on north- 
ward through Kingston and so down the northern boulevard of the 
Ashokan headworks and past Browns Station, where the men 
of the loth have struck their tents and are merely waiting for the 
hour of 6. 

In the distribution of the new regiment's forces the Commanding 
Officer had been given to understand that the Aqueduct police 
would patrol the Ashokan headworks, but upon halting at the 
police barracks at Browns Station, Colonel Rose learns that no 
orders to this effect have been given. Arrangements are made for 
this by telephone with Secretary Einbigler of the B. W. S. for 
this work to be done by the B. W. S. Police. 

It is just 5.45 when the Pathfinder rumbles across Olive Bridge, 
hums up the steep hill and drops down to the yellow B. W. S. 
building which has been used as the barracks for the troops in 
charge of this sector, now packed and awaiting for the last guard 
detail to come in from the line where it has been relieved by the 
men of Company A, ist Infantry. 

The sun is setting, all blood and fire, behind the mountains as 
the Pathfinder halts before the barracks and Colonel Rose is 
greeted by Lieut. Snowden. 

*'We haven't any guns; we haven't any ammunition or any- 
thing else, but they're out there with clubs guarding it," is Snow- 
den's report — words that typify the spirit of the regiment from 
that day to the day of its final release. 

There is a brief inspection of the barracks — unsanitary, sur- 
roundings uncouth and uninviting enough at the best. Then the 
last detachment of the loth marches out, singing. The line has 
changed hands just 57 hours from the time the first orders to the 
new troops went out. The new, half-clad boys gather before the 
barracks in the sunlight, watching the departure of the well- 
equipped veterans who are to go overseas and play such a large 
part in the final round of the battle for the freedom of man. 

A strange quiet settles over the new-comers. From beyond the 
crest of the hill over which the loth men have disappeared comes 
back the refrain: 

Hail! Hail! The Gangs all here, 
So what the hell do we care now! 



MOBILIZATION 41 

Overhead at the peak of the flag-pole the Stars and Stripes 
rattle the halyard block in a flutter of sunset breeze; the twin 
siphons of the Tongore and the expanse of the dam apron shine 
white in the last rays of the sun. 

And one after the other, to the roar of exhaust and the rumble 
of laden wheels, Lieut. Miller's motor-trucks roll down the hill to 
the barracks. 



What Colonel Rose watched at the top of the line was true 
wherever the National Guard troops were ready to be relieved. 
At Atwood the loth left on the hour; at the Peak and Bonticou 
there was no delay, but on the lower end of the line a diff'erent 
situation obtained, due to the fact that the men of the 14th 
had not received orders to get out. The same condition prevailed 
on the eastern side of the river from one end of the sector to the 
other. The 23 rd stood fast, waiting for orders, while the new 
troops knocked up camps and waited for the change. But from 
'Shokan to Hillview the First Provisional was on the line of the 
Aqueduct at the time designated in S. O. 198, A. G. O., 1917. 

Down the line, with Atwood as the first stop, went the Com- 
manding Ofl&cer, arriving after dark at the Peak, where the men 
of Company B, ist Infantry, in charge of ist Sergeant Thomas 
P. McGuinness had been thrown along the line, the remainder, 
without equipment of any sort, crawling into pup tents of the 
old regiment unit. The trucks had not yet arrived with the 
baggage. 

The sergeant's report was terse and characteristic of the con- 
dition under which the regiment had taken over. 

"We didn't have anything to eat," he said, "but I begged seven 
cans of corned beef from the mess sergeant here. We had four cans 
with water for supper and we're going to have the rest in the morn- 
ing for breakfast." 

As the car headed southward to New Paltz the headlights shone 
white on two youngsters in uniform by the roadside and Colonel 
Rose paused to question them. 

They were only children, with never a beard nor the sign of a 
beard on their boy cheeks, one lanky with a blouse that stopped 
short in the matter of sleeves half-way between elbows and wrists, 
and the other a little fellow, half hidden in a bulging pair of 
breeches that would have fitted his father. 

They were going out onto the Aqueduct to relieve a couple of 
posts. "No, we' ain't got guns," said one of them; "but we got 
good sticks and this is a good dog." He looked around in the dark- 



42 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA J ? 

ness. "Where's that dog gone to? Commere, Spot; commere, 
Spot! Gosh! Dya 'spose he's run away? We need him." 

A meek Httle brown-and-white mongrel appeared in the flare 
of the headhghts. 

"There he is. We got him to-day. Some dog, huh?" They 
were trying to keep a stiff upper Hp, but they glanced at the side 
of the dark mountain and their voices shook as they suggested: 

"S'pose there's wolves on that mountain. They told us they 
was — wolves and bears." 

It was choky work. With a cheering word or two the Colonel 
passed on, leaving the two by the roadside, hand in hand, like 
the Babes in the Wood, facing the unknown. Again the spirit 
of the First Provisional had flamed in the darkness of the first 
night. 



PART IV 

Consummation 

It was after midnight when Colonel Rose reached New Paltz 
and at 4 o'clock the same morning the yellow car was purring in 
readiness for a start that brought the Commanding Officer into 
the Troop B camp on the side of gable-ended Sky Top. 

The men of Troop B were not yet astir, and with a few words of 
commendation and admonition to Captain Damon in the pink 
dawn of the mountain morning. Colonel Rose whirled away to the 
south, dropping the aide at New Paltz to report to the Adjutant- 
General, General Dyer, locate Captain De Garmo, establish con- 
nections with the city officials, and learn of the rest of the line's 
progress. Orders had gone out for 30 men of Co. H to reinforce 
the Olive Bridge sector and these men were on the line. Subse- 
quently they were moved to the Peak. 

All reports showed that little had been taken over on the eastern 
side of the river, due to the fact that the 23rd had not yet received 
orders to move out, and the Commanding Officer, upon receiving 
the report, made earnest representations to the powers at Albany 
on the subject before continuing down from New Paltz to New- 
burgh, where he crossed the ferry at 9.50 a.m., learning at the 
Breakneck outpost, near the New York Central's Storm King 
station, that Captain Johnson's men had arrived on the line at 
5 o'clock the previous night and that the Machine Gun Company 
had received orders to move at noon. 




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Upper — -A glimpse at the adjutant's office in the early days; left to 
Tight: Blizard, Speares, Therkildsen, Jackson. Center — Capt. Adelaide 
Bayliss, Colonel Powell, and Mrs. Powell. Lower — Pines Bridge Inn^ 
with Croton Lake in the background. 



MOBILIZATION 43 

This information was received from Lieut. Behrens of the Ma- 
chine Gun Company, whom Colonel Rose had met on a previous 
inspection trip, and who, having some time to himself, agreed to 
accompany Colonel Rose along the line then occupied by the 
Machine Gun Company. 

Hiland Rose, nephew of the Commanding Officer and later 
Lieutenant in a French School of Artillery in Flanders, had joined 
the party with his car at Newburgh, and he furnished the extra 
transportation necessary. 

Leaving Lieut. Eaton, Captain Johnson's lieutenant, in charge 
of the Breakneck Outpost, the party went on to Captain Johnson's 
headquarters on Gallows Field near Nelsonville. Captain Johnson 
had taken over from Captain Bryant of the 23rd and was doing 
nicely both at Nelsonville and Garrison. Impressing him with 
the importance of the Breakneck outpost and the exposed pipe 
at Indian Brook, the Colonel went on southward, the party taking 
its first long breath at the Hill Country House, where noonday 
mess was eaten. 

By this time Colonel Rose had reached the conclusion that 
Lieutenant Behrens was toovaluable an asset to be lost. TheLieu- 
tenant's experience on the line, together with his enthusiasm and 
his sympathy for the men of the new regiment taking over the 
work, made him a real ally, and the suggestions that he made were 
of the greatest value possible to the Commanding Officer at that 
time. It was Behrens who first brought the attention of the 
First Provisional Regiment to the various hotbeds of pro-German 
sedition along the Hudson, he having come into contact with them 
through intelligence work for his own organization, and it was he, 
too, who gave many little hints as to the administration at Nelson- 
ville, Breakneck and Garrison sectors, which later proved to be 
of the greatest use. His information as to the flash-light signal 
methods used between the sentries at the top and the foot of 
Breakneck Mountain was, for instance, later put to such practical 
application by the men of the First Provisional that a regular 
systematized code was worked out and used constantly at this 
point. It was Lieut. Behrens, also, who suggested the use of a 
flood-light at the entrance to the Breakneck blow-off and invited 
attention to the danger of approach to this vulnerable point by 
rowboat. How correct he was in his information and prophecy 
will be seen in later chapters of this history. While the new regi- 
ment met for the most part with the heartiest of co-operation from 
the officers of the troops it was relieving, they were all very busy 
men and there was no one of the officers of the old units that 
did so much to put the feet of the First Provisional into smooth 



44 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

paths as did this young 2nd Lieutenant of the Machine Gun 
Company, 23 rd Infantry, N. G. N. Y. 

At Van Courtlandtville Captain John J. Roche with 51 men 
and one Lieutenant had relieved 70 men of the 23rd under Lieut. 
Brennan, covering from the North Peekskill siphon to the south 
end of Sprout Brook siphon. He reported one man in the hos- 
pital as the result of an automobile scratch. The chauflFeur, added 
the captain in characteristic fashion, had been placed in the guard- 
house. 

Captain Roche was directed to confer with Captain Johnson 
to learn if he needed help, and then the party swung down through 
Peekskill to the old police barracks on the Crompound Road. 

In a lot across the way. Captain Thompson's men had pitched 
their tents, awaiting the withdrawal of the 105 men and 3 officers 
of Troop D, commanded by Captain C. H. King, which patrolled 
the sector. Colonel Rose was advised that the troop would leave 
Monday. The new men had already taken over. 

But when the inspection party struck the Hunters Brook sec- 
tion, all was not so well. There is a written memorandum on the 
subject, torn from a note-book and reading as follows: 

"Call Major Burnett's attention to fact that there is 
no patrol for a distance of at least 2,000 yards at this point. 
It is a 15-minute drive for him. Then call Sergt. of 9th 
Coast Artillery and tell him to send out men at 15-minute 
intervals. This is not according to the plan at all. I want 
the Commanding Officer of the Ninth Coast to confer with 
the commanding officer of the 12th and to divide the men 
proportionately along this sector. Make sure that the 
men are at the vital points." 

Information received during the next half-hour indicated that 
there had been a stitch dropped somewhere between the end of 
the 9th Coast territory and the beginning of the 12th. 

At the Croton Lake Screen house the party met E. C. Culyer, 
engineer in charge of the Croton-Catskill Division, and he also 
informed Colonel Rose that there was a gap in the line at Croton 
Lake. The Cornell Dam, he reported, had been uncovered since 
12.30 o'clock. 

The Pathfinder burned the road to Millwood, and it was there 
that Colonel Rose went into action. After disposing of the case 
of a 1 2th man who had been decorated with some woman's under- 
clothing by the overjoyous members of the departing 23rd, the 
Colonel began the issuance of orders that resulted in closing the 



MOBILIZATION 45 

gap between the ends of the 12th and 9th Coast. Lieut. Behrens 
was sent northward with a squad of men to cover the Scribner's 
sector and the Croton Lake section, and men were ordered up 
from the V. C. A. to piece out the line. It was here that the First 
Provisional Regiment in its first real crisis ran face to face against 
the question of transportation. There were not sufficient cars 
to be had to distribute the men over the uncovered section, but 
there were tourists stopping now and then to watch the troops, 
or passing slowly, and — the Colonel was persuasive. How many 
parties of patriotic citizens spoiled their Saturday afternoon's 
ride for the service of their State would be hard to determine, 
although at one time there were no less than six groups sitting on 
the grass by the roadside and awaiting the return of their cars 
which had gone off to the north and to Pocantico blow-off filled 
with soldiers and supplies. 

Major Blanton of the 23 rd advised Colonel Rose that the Scrib- 
ner's sector was uncovered and he had so informed Mr. Culyer, 
At 4.40 o'clock Major Burnett was directed at Peekskill by Colonel 
Rose to make inspection of the points still reported open and to 
secure 20 men from Major Hodges. The 9th Coast was ordered 
to prolong its line still farther south and to take in the entire 
Yorktown sector. This was done and that night Captain Thomp- 
son established one of the First Provisional's records when he 
covered with 16-hour posts a line 9 miles long with 40 men. 

At 5.07 Croton Dam was reported covered, and at 5.15 Lieut. 
Behrens reported the Croton Lake section covered up to the 
down-take chamber. He was told to find Captain Thompson 
and secure the line north of that point to where the 9th Coast 
line ended. 

During this time Colonel Rose, with the officers that came and 
went, remained on the grass-plot in front of the Stone Hotel at 
Millwood, poring over the long blue map of the Aqueduct which 
was at that time the sole data that had been placed at the dis- 
posal of the new regiment in the way of geographical guide. 
Captain De Garmo, Major Burnett, Major Hodges and other 
officers came and went, the telephone-bells jangled constantly. 
Darkness began to close in, and up and down the Millwood road, 
led by an old white mule and an improvised drum corps of box- 
drums and whistles, marched the hilarious members of the 23rd, 
singing "Lulu" at the top of their collective lung-power. It 
was a memorable picture. 

At 6 o'clock there appeared for the first time in the history of 
the regiment something which later was to become an institution. 
Captain Pell brought forth his tin cake-box, filled with a huge 



46 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

roast of beef, some cake, and some bread. This made supper for 
those who gathered on the grass-plot. 

With darkness, the conference adjourned to the inside of the 
hotel. Reports then in showed that the line was covered at all 
points. The most critical period of the taking over had been passed, 
and successfully. As Colonel Rose remarked at the time, it was 
inevitable that there would be a break in the chain somewhere, 
and it happened opportunely, for, as always, he was there before 
it had become serious, to handle it himself. 

In searching for the reason of this one error in the taking over 
of the line, it is not hard to find the cause. Had the former 
National Guard troops moved out on the hour specified in S. O. 
198, A. G. O., at 6 o'clock the day before, there would have been 
no confusion. The commanding officers to whom was assigned 
the duty of taking over the sectors in question would have been 
able to follow Colonel Rose's explicit directions. The detach- 
ments would have gone at once to the points specified in the 
orders and there would have been no question about it. But as 
it was, the period during which that portion of the line remained 
unguarded was spanned by the movements of the Commanding 
OiB&cer's car along it, and the movements of the troops sent north 
and south to meet the situation. 

It was obvious that a plan predicated upon the absolute carry- 
ing out of the every detail of co-operation demanded by the very 
daring of it, could only succeed with that co-operation, and thus 
at the very outset it was forcibly brought to the officers who were 
to guide the aff"airs of the First Provisional Regiment that con- 
tinued lack of co-operation and failure to fulfil promises would 
be more dangerous to the welfare of the organization than would 
have been the case had the margin of military minimums been 
greater. But the First Provisional Regiment, then, as always, 
was working on absolute minimum, and mistakes or misdirected 
eff'ort, lack of co-operation or cohesive eff'ort, were the costlier 
for it. 

The officers of the two sectors aff'ected by the lapse of the day 
were directed to meet Colonel Rose, Inspector Cohalane, Major 
Burnett and Major Hodges at Scribner's Farm the following 
morning, and Captain De Garmo was ordered to report at the 
same time. 

Sergeant Martin, Colonel Rose's chauff*eur, had seen in his 
travels of the evening the brilliantly lighted front of Pines Bridge 
Manor on the south shore of Croton Lake at Pines Bridge, and 
when the question of quarters for the officers for the night arose 
it was Sergeant Martin who suggested Pines Bridge Manor. 



MOBILIZATION * 47 

There was no tentage for the officers of the staff. He was sent 
to the Manor to ascertain what accommodations could be secured, 
and upon his return and favorable report the party motored to the 
Manor. Thus it was that on the evening of August nth the seat 
of control of the First Provisional Regiment moved to historic 
Pines Bridge. It was never shifted from that point until after 
the signing of the armistice in November, 19 18, although the 
administrative offices moved to Ossining the latter part of the 
previous month. 

For the first time in more than 48 hours, the officers were able 
to take off their clothes and secure a bath and what approximated 
a night's sleep. Early the next morning the wheels began to turn. 
Regimental headquarters was estabhshed by Special Orders No. i, 
which are reproduced, as follows: 

Telephone Mt. Kisco, 151. 

First Provisional Regiment of Infantry 

New York Guard 

Pines Bridge Manor, Croton Lake, N. Y. 

August loth, 1917. 

Special Order) 
No. I I 

I. Pursuant to S. O. 198, A. G. O., Aug. 6th, 1917, the 
organizations having been assembled at their respective 
rendezvous, the following designations of the officers 
for regimental staff are hereby promulgated: 

Commanding Officer, Colonel John B. Rose, New- 
burgh, N. Y. Tel. 246. 

Lieut.-Col. Major William L. Burnett, 143 Cannon 
Street, Poughkeepsie, N. Y. Tel. 2066-R. 

C. O. 1st Battalion, Major W. L. Hodges, 50 Cham- 
bers Street, N. Y. C. 

C. O. 2nd Battalion, Capt. Charles J. Lamb, 
Utica, N. Y. 

Reg. Adjt. 1st Lieut. T. R. Hutton, Utica, N. Y. 
Phone 3764-R. 

Supply Officer, Capt. L. B. De Garmo, Brooklyn, 
N.Y. 

Medical Officer, ist Lieut. Jerome Kingsbury, 32 
W. 48th Street, N. Y. C. 



48 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

2. The staff officers designated as above will report 
to Regimental Headquarters at once for duty. 

By Order of Colonel John B. Rose. 
Official: 
t. r. hutton 
1st Lieut. Acting Adjutant. 

Lieut. Elmer H. Miller was assigned as assistant to Captain L. 
B. De Garmo and Sergeant Martin was assigned to duty with 
Colonel Rose in S. O. i-A. Special Orders No. 2, reproduced 
herewith for a better understanding of the distribution of troops, 
was issued the same morning as were Special Orders No. 3, 
relieving Captain Pell of command of his company and assigning 
him to duty as Disbursing Officer. Special Orders No. 2 as issued, 
were as follows: 

First Provisional Regiment, Infantry 
New York Guard 
Pines Bridge Manor, Croton Lake, N. Y. 

Special Orders I August 12, 1917. 

No. 2 f 

I. The distribution of the troops and the assignment of 
their portions of the sector which they will cover is as fol- 
lows: 

division A 

From Hillview Reservoir to Headquarters, ist Battalion, 
23rd Regt. Inf, Pleasantville, V. C. A., 200 men; 7th 
Regt. Inf, 40 men. 

DIVISION A, SECTION I 

From Hillview Reservoir to point north of Lander's Road, 
59 men. 

DIVISION A, SECTION 2 

From pole 3363 to and including Columbus Avenue, (^"j men. 

DIVISION A, SECTION 3 

From Columbus Avenue to Headquarters, ist Battalion, 
23rd Regt. Inf., Pleasantville, 62 men. 



1 



MOBILIZATION 49 

DIVISION B 

From Headquarters, ist Battalion, 23rd Regt., Pleasant- 
ville to point north of Croton North Chamber to south 
side Turkey Mountain, 12th Regt., 158 men; 9th 
C. A. C, 50 men. 

DIVISION B, SECTION I 

From Headquarters, ist Battalion, 23rd Inf., Pleasant- 
ville to point north of main road, Millwood, 40 men. 

DIVISION B, SECTION 2 

From Millwood to South Chamber, Hunter's Brook siphon, 
86 men. 

DIVISION B, SECTION 3 

From North Chamber, Hunter's Brook siphon to Peeks- 
kill siphon, 66 men. 

DIVISION c 

From North Chamber, Peekskill siphon, to and including 
Breakneck, 69th Regt., 50 men; ist Field Artillery, 100 
men. 

DIVISION C, SECTION I 

From South Peekskill siphon to tunnel of South Brook 
siphon, south end of tunnel, 36 men. 

DIVISION C, SECTION 2 

From tunnel north Sprout Brook, south end of tunnel to 
north end of Indian Brook siphon, 38 men. 

DIVISION C, SECTION 3 

From north end of Indian Brook siphon to uptake, Hud- 
son River pressure tunnel at Breakneck, 76 men. 

DIVISION D 

From Shaft No. i, Vail's Gate, Cornwall, to Bonticou 
tunnel. Company F, loth Inf., 115 men; Troop H, ist 
Cav., 40 men; Co. C, ist Inf., 20 men; Troop B, ist 
Cav., 68 men. 

DIVISION D, SECTION I 

From shaft north Vail's Gate Jc, Cornwall, to St. Elmo 
siphon, 115 men. 



so H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

DIVISION D, SECTION 2 

From St. Elmo siphon to Bonticou tunnel, 128 men. 

DIVISION E 

From Bonticou tunnel to Ashokan Reservoir, Co. H, ist 
Inf., 68 men; Co. B, ist Inf., 38 men; Co. A, ist Inf., 48 
men. 

DIVISION E, SECTION I 

From Bonticou tunnel to Peak tunnel, 68 men. 

DIVISION E, SECTION 2 

From Peak tunnel to Esopus siphon south Ashokan Reser- 
voir, 86 men. 

By Order of Colonel John B. Rose. 
Official: 
T. R. Hutton 
1st Lieut., Acting Adjutant. 

Just before his departure for Scribner's Farm, Colonel Rose 
ascended the steep hill immediately behind Pines Bridge Manor 
and overlooking the sweep of the Croton lakes. He stood for a 
moment at the top of the rise in the first field immediately be- 
hind the hotel, and there he was joined by Major Hodges. 

*'This will be headquarters of the regiment," he said. "Make 
necessary arrangements." 

Just a word concerning the historic spot that Colonel Rose had 
chosen as a headquarters. At Old Pines Bridge that spanned the 
Croton River in the days before the Croton Lake, Major Andre, 
Arnold's confederate, had crossed southward on that fateful last 
ride of his that ended near Tarrytown on the old Post Road. 
It was at a little house some three miles to the northward that 
Andre had spent his last night of freedom. On the shoulders of 
Crow Hill, or "Headquarters Hill," as it is now known, may still 
be seen the outlines of the redoubts that Washington's retreating 
army threw up as an outguard resistance point after the battle 
of White Plains, and close to the State highway at the northern 
end of the present Pines Bridge is the final resting-place of a 
dozen Maryland troopers who lost their lives in a battle at the 
Croton River ford just before Yorktown Heights. 

Since the question has now and again been raised as to the 
reason for the establishment of the headquarters camp on Crow 
Hill, it may be well here to enumerate Colonel Rose's reasons for 



MOBILIZATION Si 

it. First, the camp offered isolation from the distractions which 
proximity to a town would have meant for officers and men. 
Secondly, it was strategically situated, being at the intersection 
of a network of roads leading to all points on the lower line by 
the shortest possible routes. Again, its very location was any- 
thing but an invitation to visitors. In those days — and later — 
there was no time for visitors. 

From the conference at Scribner's it became apparent that 
more troops were needed immediately to fill the gap that would 
exist on the Scribner's Farm sector unless men were to continue 
working at breaking point, as was then the case. Accordingly, 
Captain Connors of Company F, ist Infantry, Walton, was 
directed to entrain 40 men, and Lieut. F. M. H. Jackson of Com- 
pany G, Oneonta, with 40 men as soon as possible, reporting to 
Peekskill. 

Sergeant-Major Lloyd H. Stark was brought to headquarters 
for battalion work, ist Lieut. Frank Davidson, V. C. A., came 
as Battalion Adjutant, but it was at once apparent that another 
stenographer must be secured for regimental work. This resulted 
in the order that brought into headquarters Herbert W. Speares 
of Troop H, who as Regimental Sergeant-Major meant so much 
to the success of the Adjutant's office in the early days of the regi- 
ment's history. 

After receiving reports that showed the line was solid south of 
Millwood, Colonel Rose proceeded northward again with the 
Adjutant. It was a distinct tribute to the men of the V. C. A. 
and the 7th Infantry that the Commanding Officer was so cer- 
tain of their work that he believed an inspection of the lower end 
of the line unnecessary at that time, although it was the most 
vital portion of the entire Aqueduct. 

On the northern trip Colonel Rose found things moving 
smoothly, with all points taken over on the west side of the river 
and battalion headquarters established at the Tamney Hotel, 
New Paltz, the most central point on the 2nd Battalion's line. 
An exact report was to be made to the Division of Defense and 
Security concerning the number of posts and by whom they were 
covered, and at the same time Colonel Rose wished to see for 
himself how well the work was being done. This led to a night 
visit on the Atwood sector and an incident which indicated how 
keenly on edge were the men of the First Provisional. 

They had been furnished with ammunition and they were not 
yet over their initial nervousness as the events of the night proved. 
It was — But let Sergeant Martin tell it as he has told it so many 
times, in his own characteristic and inimitable style. 



52 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

"We're going up onto the due with the car, see, with me kicking 
all the way, because, I says, *It's dangerous/ 

"* Dangerous nothin',' the Colonel says, and just then somebody 
hollers, *Halt!' Fm just waiting for that; I stop quick and puts 
out the lights right away. The fellow finds out who we are and 
tells us there has been queer doings at the upper end. 

"*That means,' says I to myself, 'that everybody is nervous, 
and you want to look out for yourself. Chuck, or you ain't going 
to be any use to your government or yourself forever.' Just then 
somebody up the line hollers: 'Halt! Halt! There he goes!' 
Bang! Bang! And I see two streaks of fire up along the due 
in the dark. 

"'He was crawling on his belly!' somebody yells. 'Look out! 
he's coming down your way.' Bang! and somebody else does the 
Manilla Bay act. 

"The boss wants to go along and see what it's all about, but 
I put up an awful argument. 'You got to look out for yourself,' 
says I. 'What good would you be doing to the regiment if you 
was to get shot.?' 

'"I won't get shot,' he says. 'What's the matter with you? 
Are you scared?' 

"I tells him I ain't scared of nothin', but I'd rather be in France 
than out with these fellows with the nerves they've got, but he 
says, 'Go on,' so we goes on. Now Fm just crawling along, 
you know, and all of a sudden somebody says: 

'"Halt! Who goes — ' Bang! and I hear her squeal as she 
sails over the top of the car." 

Just what the real cause of the disturbance on the sector was 
that night will probably never be known, although Lieut. Snowden 
found a place on the loose sand of a road-crossing where a man 
had crawled under the bushes at the edge of the Aqueduct. In 
any event, that first shot fired on the line of the First Provisional 
furnished plenty of excitement for one night. 

Colonel Rose stopped at Highland for the night, and went on, 
leaving the Adjutant at New Paltz to communicate with the 
Adjutant-General, General Dyer, and others. The promised 
transportation was not coming through as fast as had been prom- 
ised; there was still mess kits and other equipment to come. 

Major Blair, at the Division of Defense and Security, referred 
the matter to Colonel J. Weston Myers, the Chief Quartermaster 
of the State, and Colonel Myers' answer was the foundation on 
which the First Provisional Regiment builded in the weeks that 
followed when it was without adequate transportation, food or 
supplies. 



MOBILIZATION S3 

"Tell Colonel Rose to go ahead with what he needs. I am going 
to Albany this afternoon and will rush that authority. The 
authority will come. Don't worry about that." 

Major George J. Winslow, at Utica, was advised that 20 more 
men were wanted to strengthen the Utica companies as speedily 
as possible. Major Wilbur's men had been moved to the Peak 
sector. 

It was as a result of his inspection on the line the night before, 
together with advice from Inspector Cohalane on the subject of 
patrol dogs, that Colonel Rose at this time directed the Adjutant 
to take action which resulted in the establishment of the First 
Provisional Regiment's Airedale Patrol, discussed at length in 
the chapter entitled "Dogs of the Regiment." 

On this date Captain Damon was made Battalion Inspector and 
Lieut. Van Nouhuys assumed command of the troop in his absence. 

The tour of the line on this day showed that the men of the 
First Provisional Regiment had caught the big picture that 
Colonel Rose had painted for them at Highland. Already many 
of the manholes on the cut and cover had been covered over with 
sod, and grass and bushes were being cut around the culvert 
entrances. The camps were beginning to assume shape, and 
although many of the sectors were still without bicycles and none 
had motor transportation other than what was hired, subsistence 
was being sent to the outposts regularly and the Aqueduct was 
being guarded. 

At St. Elmo Troop H was comfortably established near the site 
of the old cavalry camp, with flies as the main source of trouble, 
and the usual shortage of equipment. 

Company F of the loth, under Captain Gifford, had established 
itself with headquarters at Vail's Gate and was doing well, thanks 
to the large amount of privately owned transportation available 
for the distribution of troops and supplies. With arrangements 
perfected for the continuation of guard on the Ashokan headworks 
by the B. W. S. mounted police and the line of the 2nd Battalion 
well set from Ashokan to Vail's Gate, Colonel Rose turned back to 
Regimental Headquarters, where things had been moving smoothly 
since his departure. 

The detachment from Walton had arrived and was transferred 
from Peekskill State Camp to the Scribner's Farm sector, which 
Captain Conners took over forthwith, including the Hunter's 
Brook siphon. The Oneonta detachment, in command of Captain 
Jackson, had been brought into headquarters and assigned to 
duty there as headquarters company temporarily. It should be 
added at this time that because of the peculiar adaptability and 



54 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

handlness of this company this arrangement was never changed 
until the Oneonta men had practically dwindled away through 
loss by release. 

The establishment of the first headquarters camp was in the 
field immediately behind the hotel at Pines Bridge and overlooking 
the lake, but within a day or two it was decided that a much better 
location could be secured farther up the hill, and as a result the 
entire establishment was moved. There were no floorings and 
the slope of the hill was such that sleeping with one's cot parallel 
to the base of the hill meant being out of bed during the night 
unless the cot were blocked. 

At this time a description of that first headquarters camp may 
not be amiss before turning to the trials of the men of the V. 
C. A., and the chronological order of events. 

On the extreme right of the first line of tents a little white 
officers' wall housed the one telephone in the camp, although others 
were installed later. Next came the Adjutant's tent, a big brown 
storage of more or less draughty nature. 

The next tent was that of the Commanding Officer, then came 
the tents of the Lieutenant-Colonel and Major Hodges, Lieut. 
Davidson, Captain Pell, and Lieut. Williams. The latrines were 
on the left flank of the camp. 

In the second row were other officers' tents, including that of 
Dr. Kingsbury and Lieut. Jackson. Then came the non-com- 
missioned officers, and finally the white conicals of the Head- 
quarters Company, together with the storage tent. The mess halls 
were as yet a thing of the future. There was only one approach 
to the camp at first and that was up the steep hill from Pines Bridge 
Manor. An opening was cut through the fence from the lower 
field for the road, and this road remained in use to a greater or 
less extent even after one was cut through from the Crow Hill 
road on the east of the camp. 

Water was one of the big necessities, and for a time it seemed 
that the only way in which this could be secured would be by pump- 
ing it from the lake below. Water was carried from the hotel for 
some time, and later a spring farther up on the hill was piped into 
the camp, but the flow was too small to meet the requirements. 
Eventually water was brought from a spring on the Ford property 
on the eastern side of the Crow Hill road about 600 feet from the 
camp, where a pump was installed and operated by gasoline. 

Something has been said of the work of the men of the Veteran 
Corps of Artillery who for the first time in the last half-century 
of the history of this oldest military organization in the State, 
offered itself for militia duty in the emergency with which the 



MOBILIZATION 55 

State found Itself face to face. There is perhaps no better place 
than this to speak in detail of the men of the V. C. A. and the 
peculiar part which they played in the early days of the First 
Provisional Regiment. Much of this work one has told in verse, 
some of which is reproduced in the chapter on the Regiment's 
Literature. 

To adequately appreciate the service of the Veteran Corps of 
Artillery one must grasp the fact of its personnel, the like of which 
was probably never before seen in an organization on active mili- 
tary service since the days of the fighting citizens of Lexington 
and Concord. The ranking social military organization of the 
State of New York, made up for the most part of men whose 
names stood high on the social register, came to the conclusion 
in the early part of America's participation in the war that to be 
of maximum use it must be of maximum strength, and as a result 
of this recruiting its body became an odd composite of social 
strata, with the six- and eight-figure variety predominating. At 
the time when it was called into service under S. O., 198-A, A. G. 
O., 1917, it was largely made up of business men, railroad heads, 
bankers, lawyers, statesmen and manufacturers; brokers, con- 
sulting engineers, polo-players and yachtsmen. 

The participation in this service meant particular sacrifice to 
these men, and it also meant something else — something not 
contemplated by the military regulations of the forces of New York 
State or any other State forces in existence — something not at 
all military, but very necessary when the fate of a railroad, an 
entire tier of the steel business or a few millions of dollars' worth 
of real estate needed by the government depended upon the 
presence of President Brown, General Manager Smith, or Treas- 
urer Jones. It meant a steady and continual flow of substitutions 
on all sectors occupied by the V. C. A. While the Special Orders 
of the Adjutant-General's Office, which brought this organization 
onto the line called for 200 men, it is not an exaggeration to say 
that at one time and another approximately 500 men of the or- 
ganization helped to guard the Aqueduct. 

For instance: Mr. Jones, as the head of a great insurance firm, 
came out with his battery as a part of the provisional battalion 
provided by the V. C. A. At the expiration of three days business 
affairs became so pressing at the office that thereafter for three 
days Mr. Jones was obliged to spend at least an hour on the tele- 
phone every morning with his office manager, and on the seventh 
day was obliged to return to New York, as things were getting 
into a bad mess during his absence. He found that to continue 
his work on the Aqueduct he must at least spend an hour a day 



56 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

at the office, and accordingly arrangements must be made in his 
sector to meet this situation. 

This case is mild as compared with Case No. 2, that of Mr. 
Brown, whose Wall Street activities were such that he could do 
guard duty only from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m., being rushed between 
Street and sector in his long, low machine and going sleepless 
and clad in his uniform onto the field of battle in the financial 
storm center daily, while 7 p.m. found him peeling potatoes at the 
camp for breakfast next morning. 

There were many Browns and Joneses, but such gave their sector 
commanders nowhere near the trouble of Mr. Smith, and many 
like him, who could give but four hours a day from business and 
family life for the protection of the Aqueduct. Something un- 
toward would arise and Smith would call a brother member of 
the V. C. A. by telephone and ask him to substitute that day. 
Or it might be that he would meet on the street a friend not at 
all connected with the V. C. A. to whom he would tell his troubles 
in the securing of a substitute for the night's duty. And his 
friend, anxious to take advantage of the experience, would at 
once volunteer. It would never occur to either of them that the 
friend, because he was not enlisted in the State service, would 
have no protection whatsoever if by any chance he were to shoot 
some one while in the performance of duty. The friend would 
report to an astonished officer on the sector, and then might spend 
considerable time on an incinerator or police detail before going 
on guard, where he would ponder as to why he was given no am- 
munition. 

The following extracts taken from the pages of a private mem- 
orandum-book kept by one of the officers of the V. C. A. illustrate 
the condition far better than could any amount of explanation. 
The names given are fictitious, but the notes are genuine and those 
to whom they applied will recognize them: 

Dobson, W. F. i Battery. Leaves Aug. 20, 8 a.m. 

A Company, ist Platoon. 
Aug. nth, 4 P.M. — Reported to Lieut. Lane for duty. 
(Taking Elder's place.) 
Assigned to Post No. 4 and sent to 
post. 
13th, 8 A.M. — Leave granted until Sat., Aug. 18, 

10 A.M. 
i8th, 10 A.M. — Reported back. Assigned i-io. 
20th, 8 A.M. — Leave granted until Sat., Aug. 25. 
Four days. Will probably be up Saturday. 



MOBILIZATION 57 

Daverside, R. E. 7th Battery. (Sat. over Labor Day.) 

(Every Sat. and Sunday.) 
Aug. i8th, 2.30 P.M. — Reported. Assigned to Hdqrts. 

1 8th, 6.00 P.M. — Assigned to Post No. 4. 

20th, Leave granted until Tues., Aug. 21, 

8 P.M. 

2ist, Reported back — until Aug. 22, 8 

A.M. — Post No. 4. 
22nd, 9.00 A.M. — Leave granted until 7 p.m. 

22nd, 7.00 P.M. — Reportedback. Furloughed until 

Any night wanted. 

96 Jamieson Avenue. Phone probably under Newton. 

The man of strictly military viewpoint may say: "But all this 
was not according to regulations; it was very unmilitary. Why 
put up with it.? Why was such a condition necessary?" 

If the reader has not graspe'd the answer by this time, let a 
single statement suffice. There were no available troops in the 
State. Moreover, whatever irregularities may have occurred 
were made up for in the enthusiasm of the men of the V. C. A. 
And these irregularities never interfered with the guarding of the 
Aqueduct. Despite the comings and goings; despite the frequent 
changes in personnel, the line covered by the men of the V. C. A. 
was impregnable. If, because of the flutterings of Wall Street 
that kept Schuyler Jones from his tour of duty, Vandevere Smith 
was obliged to work eighteen hours continuously, it was with the 
joy of the thoroughbred at having to grasp the unusual and con- 
quer it, that Vandevere Smith accepted the penalty and made the 
most of it. As a matter of fact, these men suffered some unneces- 
sary hardships rather than to appear to be soft. If there was one 
thing which each wished to avoid, it was taking advantage of 
social or business position to be in any way more comfortable 
than the others, and there is a legend of one man who used to 
steal from the camp after dark to meet his valet and clean under- 
wear at the foot of the hill, rather than to have the valet bring 
it into the camp. The saying that blood will tell never received 
a better vindication than in these men who left all of the world's 
comforts behind them to take their part in the first days of the 
State's biggest military operation. 

And the men of the V. C. A. added many permanent improve- 
ments to their line which meant much to the companies that came 
in later days, but who would have been without the means to 
make these improvements. The enthusiasm of these men of the 
V. C. A. knew no bounds. The terror of the Junior cot, the heat 



58 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

of the sun and the cold of the wind-swept night on Kensico Dam, 
the blister of sickle-sore hands, the unaccustomed lowliness of 
kitchen police and the butt-hunting ignominy of camp police 
were eagerly welcomed by them as a portion of their "bit." 

"They are actually crazy to work," was the report of Captain 
Hayden J. Bates, later in the Adjutant-General's office. "I never 
saw anything like it in my life." He rattled off a bunch of family 
names that have appeared at every period in the history of New 
York since the time of Peter Stuyvesant. "All those fellows there 
and all working like the merry devil. The only thing they couldn't 
understand was the lack of plumbing in the camps, and I advised 
them to have it installed immediately. What's more, they are 
going to. You should see their guard duty. They wouldn't 
let the Colonel himself through without passports and finger- 
prints." 

And that gives the picture of the men of the V. C. A. on the 
job. It tells nothing of their ingenuity in the matter of camp- 
making and their liberal interpretation of the regulations and 
field-service manuals in the matter of purchases and subsistence 
allowances, nor does it indicate the multiplicity of duty which 
fell to each one of them. 

Emmons' 

And I am a cook and a sentry, too, 

And my hours are long and hard; 
I'm orderly, mess-boy and police 

And Corporal of the guard. 

tells the story of the V. C. A. better than anything else possibly 
could. 

Their ingenuity was perhaps the most salient of their character- 
istics, aside from their enthusiasm. In the matter of tentage they, 
like all of the rest of the First Provisional, suffered from the in- 
adequacies and the frailties of the conicals of '98 vintage. Many 
of those old white tents were without hoods, and the V. C. A. 
drew their share. But at Tuckahoe, for instance, where Lieut. 
Lane, who later became Judge Advocate of the regiment, was in 
charge, this shortage was remedied by an umbrella, which was 
fastened to the tent-pole over the hood opening. Others used 
soap-boxes for the same purpose. Using their well-filled purses 
freely, they built screened mess kitchens from screen doors when 
they were unable to find screen cloth, and in a dozen other ways 
demonstrated their adaptability to make the best of conditions. 

The V. C. A. suffered quite as much as any other unit from the 




The Second Battalion Staff 

Lo«;^r,'left to right — Captain Miller, Major Lamb, Captain Snowden. 
Upper — Captain Benson, Lieut. Richards, Lieut. Bechtol. 




upper — Ashokan headworks and aerating-plant. Center — Shaft 8, 
Company H sector. Lower — Cut and cover and barracks, Company F, 
looking from Bonticou. 



MOBILIZATION 59 

Junior cot and one of the funniest of the Junior-cot stories comes 
from that sector via Sergeant Joseph C. Chase, the portrait 
painter, who was art editor of the regimental paper, The Watchdog, 
during the period of its existence. 

It was a wet night, and getting wetter all the time, as any one 
who happened to be sleeping under a pinhole in the tent could 
testify. The canvas was soaked, the ground was soaked, and there 
arose throughout the tent the aroma of wet clothing. 

Those who have experienced it will remember the Junior-Cot 
nightmare. It began with the idea that one was being pushed 
frantically by some one behind, resolved into the sensation of 
roasting on a barrel grid in one of the depths of the Inquisitorial 
Fastness, and finally evolved into actual torment of the rack. 

One of the members of the squad was passing through this 
nightmare, or something like it, as he tossed and rolled restlessly 
on his cot. Apparently the scene changed to that of a baseball- 
field for he began to cheer the hits and the runs. Suddenly he 
leaped from his cot with a yell and grabbed the center pole vio- 
lently. 

"Three strikes! You're out!" he shrieked, and wrenched the 
base of the pole loose.'' 

And they were, for down came the heavy wet canvas in a 
smothering mass over those who slept and those who remained 
awake listening to the nightmare. Everybody was out until the 
tent was up again. They all blessed the pitcher, too. 



PART V 
Organization 

While the officers of the line were trying to work out guard 
details so that a man could have some time to himself at stated 
intervals, while the problems of grass- and brush-cutting to uncover 
the culverts were being met along the line, and while the new 
troops were gradually becoming accustomed to their new job, 
the big questions of transportation and equipment were looming 
larger and larger before the Commanding Officer. 

The City of New York had partly fulfilled its promises, but it 
was only a very small part thus far. Three old police patrols and 
twenty-five old motor-cycles that had been scrapped by the 
police department and which never helped the First Provisional 
Regiment an inch, had been delivered, together with a shipment 



6o H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

of new bicycles which were of real help, but thus far nothing had 
apparently been done in the way of the transportation other than 
the bicycles promised at the preliminary conference in General 
Dyer's office. 

This resulted in strong verbal representations to the office of 
the Adjutant-General and the Division of Defense and Security. 
Neither the transportation nor authority for the hire of transpor- 
tation had been received from the City of New York, nor had 
authority been given in writing for necessary purchases. 

All this was communicated to General George R. Dyer on the 
14th, and on the 15th, when the authority had not been received, 
Colonel Rose again communicated with General Dyer. The 
General then sent the following telegram to Mayor Mitchel: 

August i6th, 1917. 
Hon. John Purroy Mitchel, 
Mayor of the City of New York, 
City Hall, New York City. 

Complying with request of Governor of July twenty- 
seventh by Acting Mayor for protection of New York 
City Water Supply with State Military Forces pursuant 
section one hundred fifteen military law and with verbal 
authority from Commissioner Woods authorizing troops 
to be called out at expense of City for organization and 
mobilization purposes in advance of actually assuming 
guard duty, troops were ordered into service August seventh 
and assumed guard duty six p.m. August tenth which was 
time specified for removal of Federal Troops. Total 
strength today ten hundred thirty-four men forty-four 
officers. It is of utmost importance that city provide im- 
mediately steel screens for culverts also furnish forty-five 
additional motorcycles in good condition ten light motor 
trucks eighteen touring cars for officers two which should 
be heavy type complete telephone connection with all posts 
all as previously promised and planned by city officials. 
Otherwise it will be necessary to increase forces immedi- 
ately by several hundred men at greatly increased expense 
to City. Approximately thirty-seven hundred troops were 
employed by Federal Government to cover this sector and 
reduced number was computed in rehance on city's plan for 
furnishing these additional facilities. In our judgment 
present troops alone are entirely inadequate. Please wire 
whether facilities will be furnished or whether you wish 



MOBILIZATION 6i 

increased forces ordered on duty. Situation demands im- 
mediate action. 

George R. Dyer, Brigadier-General, 
Division of Defense and Security. 
Ob 
Chg 
Ago 

And the Mayor replied as follows: 

New York, August i6th, 1917. 
Brigadier-General George R. Dyer, 

Division of Defense and Security, Albany, N. Y. 

Colonel Rose conferred with me and Comptroller today. 
The Comptroller is sending representative over line to- 
morrow to confer with Colonel Rose and to arrive at definite 
understanding. There is no further question about ad- 
ditional telephone service. Board of Water Supply was 
asked yesterday to install this. We will accept judgment 
of Board of Water Supply on question of screening culverts. 
This has been submitted to them and whole matter will 
be definitely settled tomorrow. 

John Purroy Mitchel. 

The conference referred to in the above telegram took plac^ 
on the 17th, when for the first time the military viewpoint clashed 
with the lay viewpoint as to the guarding of the Aqueduct, but 
when it was all over the city representatives, which included 
Adamson and Flynn, were satisfied. Inspector Cohalane ap- 
peared with Messrs. Flynn and Adamson, but his viewpoint was 
that of the military authorities. 

On the same day the following telegrams flashed between Albany 
and New York: 

Albany, N. Y., August 17, 1917. 
Honorable John Purroy Mitchel, 
City Hall, New York City. 

It is assumed you approve hiring by State at city's ex- 
pense vehicles necessary for transportation of troops and 
supplies in connection with water system until such time 
as city may furnish them. Please confirm by wire. 

George R. Dyer, Brigadier-General, 

Division of Defense and Security. 



62 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

New York, August 17, 19 17. 
Brigadier-General George R. Dyer, 
Albany, N. Y. 

Telegram received. The Mayor approves hiring at city's 
expense vehicles necessary for transportation of troops and 
supplies until city can furnish them. 

Same. L. Martin, 
Executive Secretary. 

This was the regiment's authority for its emergency expenses 
not specifically authorized. 

On the same day that this conference was held, Colonel Rose 
called on Mayor Mitchel in New York, and after the situation 
was outlined Mayor Mitchel requested Colonel Rose to present 
the case to the Comptroller. In this conference Colonel Rose 
called the attention of the Comptroller to the fact that the cost 
of hiring motor transportation necessary to the conduct of the 
regiment was assuming such proportions that machines might be 
purchased for the same amount that it would cost to hire the 
number of automobiles approved by Inspector Cohalane. 

Lieut. H. Pushae Williams, V. C. A., had been placed in charge 
of transportation at Regimental Headquarters under Special 
Orders No. 6, on August 15th. There was no officer in the regi- 
ment who had more trials than Lieut. Williams with his police 
trucks, motor-cycles and the old green Lozier provided by the 
City of New York as its first consignment of transportation. By 
using parts from the other machines, three of the motor-cycles 
were finally induced to work for a short period, and constant 
attention kept the old police trucks running, although the grades 
of the Headquarters Hill took the starch out of them severely. 
The Lozier lay down time and again and finally threw itself over 
a bank, thus ending its usefulness. All of this equipment was 
later returned to the city. 

It was soon after the conference described above that Lieut. 
Williams was sent to the City of New York to stay with the matter 
of transportation until some action could be secured. Although 
progress was necessarily slow, he kept at it. 

Parallel to the motor transportation situation the upbuilding 
of the line by new troops continued. On August i6th fifty men and 
one officer of Company C, ist Infantry, Watertown, recruited 
since mobilization, were ordered on duty, reporting in command 
of 2nd Lieut. Byron L. Green to Major Lamb at New Paltz, 
where they were assigned to the Gardner sector. Fifty men of 
the 9th C. A. C. were ordered out to strengthen the V. C. A. line 



MOBILIZATION 63 

at Valhalla. Thirty men were ordered out from Company K of 
the loth Infantry and placed on the sector later known as N-4. 
This sector was later (on Aug. 24th) placed in command of Capt. 
F. M. H. Jackson, who had entered the field as a ist Lieutenant 
in charge of the Headquarters Company. 

On August 2ist, under Special Orders No. 12, a detail of three 
men in charge of Corp. Frederick G. Clapp was assigned to make 
maps of the various sectors of the regiment from Ashokan to 
Hillview. The work in question, which was one of the most 
valuable undertakings of the regiment from a military standpoint, 
is considered elsewhere. 

On August 23rd, a flag-pole of steel pipe having been raised in 
front of the Commanding Officer's tent on Crow Hill, a flag was 
raised over Camp Rose for the first time, and the camp was given 
its name formally by Lieut.-Colonel Burnett. At the ceremony 
there were present the acting Lieutenant-Colonel, Major Hodges, 
Captain Pell, Lieut. Davidson, Captain Jackson, and the non- 
commissioned staflF and Headquarters Company. 

About this time, on August 25th, there came into the active 
life of the First Provisional Regiment a man who was later des- 
tined to mean much to the regiment in its hours of play and who 
added to the sum of helpfulness In no small measure as Medical 
Officer. 1st Lieut. Charles A. Clinton, V. C. A., who had been 
serving at Kensico, was discovered by Colonel Rose and assigned 
as Medical Officer of the Second Battalion at New Paltz. As 
the writer of the First Provisional Regiment's march, "The 
Good Old N. Y. G.," as a spontaneous humorist and as a con- 
scientious medical officer, Lieut. Clinton made a particular place 
for himself with the battalion and regiment, serving In virgin 
territory and Instituting at the beginning of his career as medical 
officer with the Second Battalion, the post-packet system which 
Is discussed in a later chapter. 

On August 28th, Capt. Maurice Damon of Troop B was desig- 
nated as Summary Court Officer of the Second Battalion, then 
comprised of the following units: 

Company A, ist Infantry 
Company B, ist Infantry 
Company C, ist Infantry 
Company H, ist Infantry 
Troop H, 1st Cavalry 
Troop B, 1st Cavalry 
Company F, loth Infantry 
Company K, loth Infantry 



64 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

At the same time special orders were issued making Lieut. H. 
P. Williams Summary Court Officer for the First Battalion, then 
comprised of: 

Batteries A and B, V. C. A. 
Company C, 7th Regiment Inf. 
Company A, 69th Regiment Inf. 
Company A, 12th Infantry 
Company B, 12th Infantry 
4th Company, 9th C. A. C. 
Battery C, ist Field Artillery 
Company F, ist Infantry 
Company G, ist Infantry 

How these organizations were distributed along the line may 
be noted from Appendix I-A, showing the distribution of troops 
at this time. 

It was on the 28th that Lieut. Williams 'phoned from New York 
that all arrangements had been made for the motor transportation 
to be furnished by the city and that money had been appropriated 
for the purchase and delivery of the following: 

Three Cadillac Touring Cars 

Four Buicks or two Buicks and two Hupmobiles 

Fifteen Ford Trucks 

Eight Ford Touring Cars 

At 8 P.M., while the officers and men of headquarters stood on 
the hill in front of the tents and cheered, Lieut. Williams arrived 
with three Cadillacs, two Buicks and two Hupmobiles. 

On the following day the 9th Coast Artillerymen, who had been 
sent to Elmsford and Kensico, were transferred to Captain 
Thompson's command and on that date Captain Thompson took 
over the Scribner's Farm sector (Sector S-4). Captain Conner's 
command on the same date took over the Elmsford sector (Sec- 
tor S-8), which from that time on was maintained as a distinct 
and separate sector in the organization. 

The 30th of August was made notable by the arrival of two 
personages, the first, chronologically, being Mr. John Towner, 
of Towners, N. Y., as the log-book says. When he strolled into 
the camp on Headquarters Hill with his black derby perched on 
the back of his surprisingly bald head, no one present suspected 
that as Lieut. John Towner, ist F. A., M. G., ist Inf., Co. C, 
1st Inf., etc., etc., he would in later days play a big part in the 



MOBILIZATION 65 

regiment's history and become one of the best-loved officers of the 
regiment. 

Colonel Rose arrived at 6 p.m. and the first guard was turned 
out in his honor. The log shows that at 7.30 p.m. "Mr. John 
Towner left Camp." 

More Ford cars arrived on the following day, which was other- 
wise uneventful save for the first intimation from a home unit 
that there were no more volunteer troops. This came from the 
14th Infantry. 

On the 31st of August and the ist of September, the report on 
telephone data asked for by the City of New York that a telephone 
system of an instrument to every fixed post might be installed, 
was secured on both sides of the Hudson, and the Adjutant, to- 
gether with Sergeant-Major Speares, carried the compiled data 
into New York City, delivering it to the office of the Chief of 
Police after a practically continuous run of forty-eight hours. 
This was a fair example of the way in which every one traveled in 
those early days of the regiment's history, when there were a 
thousand things to be done at once. 

It was on this trip that Sergeant-Major Speares again added to 
his fame as a tireless worker and a humorist. With the data 
delivered, the car made the run to the end of the island of Man- 
hattan and then started northward. 

It was five o'clock Sunday morning when, as the Buick reached 
the point where St. Nicholas Ave. falls away to the flat near 
Fort George, the Sergeant-Major lunged forward over his wheel, 
and then righted himself as the car swerved. 

"Captain, I can't make it," he said. "I'll ditch the whole busi- 
ness going down this hill. I'm dead tired." 

So the car pulled up alongside one of the beehive concrete 
apartments of the heights and the travelers prepared for an hour 
of sleep. Climbing back into the tonneau, they were just be- 
ginning to doze when the heavy foot of a policeman crunched the 
gravel beside the car and a helmet poked into the tonneau. 

"What's this.?" asked the officer. 

He was told, in short, concise language, for the Adjutant was 
sleepy and cross. 

"Oh, all right," he remarked as he turned away. "That's all 
right." 

The Sergeant-Major half roused. 

"Oh, officer!" he called, sleepily. 

"Yes," said the policeman, turning back. 

"Turn out the light on the dash like a good chap, will 



you 



66 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

The policeman stared for a moment, hesitated, and then com- 
plied. 

"Thanks," grunted the Sergeant-Major, and then rolling over, 
quoted Colonel Rose. "That's the idea; give them something to 
do and keep them interested." 

It was on that same morning that the first church service was 
held at headquarters. Simultaneously other services were being 
conducted along the entire line of the regiment. Of the religious 
life of the organization, which at all times was a dominating factor 
in its progress, there is more detailed discussion in a chapter de- 
voted to the subject hereafter. 

Monday was Labor Day, the first holiday spent by the First 
Provisional Regiment in the field. The day was marked by a 
large number of visitors at all camps along the line, and at the 
Tuckahoe-road post on the sector covered by Captain Praeger, 
ceremonious retreat was held, followed by a concert by the Ger- 
man Orphan Asylum band. This affair was attended by a num- 
ber of the officers at headquarters. 

Lieut. Davidson had, because of business reasons, been obliged 
to give up the work of Adjutant of the ist Battalion, and this work 
had been taken over by Lieut. Theodore T. Lane, V. C. A., 
formerly stationed at Tuckahoe road. Lieut. Lane continued at 
the headquarters of the regiment from that time until the de- 
mobilization of the organization in February, 1919, serving as 
Summary Court Officer, Battalion Inspector, Judge Advocate, 
and as assistant to the Commanding Officer at various times, and 
adding much to the achievement of the regiment. 

For several nights the men of the headquarters office had been 
roused from their beds in the early morning hours by reports 
from the 2nd Battalion of aeroplanes hovering over the line, or 
working in the immediate vicinity of it. There were corroborated 
reports of a group of one large and three small planes of a make 
not recognized by the sentries operating the 'Shokan region and 
in the Walkill Valley, and civilians reported the same thing. 

All of the known aviation schools on the eastern coast and 
those inland were asked if planes from their stations were on night 
duty on the nights indicated, but both army and naval aviation 
stations reported in the negative. The matter was then taken up 
with the Department of the East Headquarters at Governors 
Island, and at the request of Major Marsten, a detailed report 
of the matter was made and forwarded to the Department of 
the East by mail. The aeroplane alarms continued for some days, 
planes in some instances dropping as low as 500 feet above the 
sentries' heads. This was just prior to the executive order from 



MOBILIZATION ei 

the President directing fire at planes not carrying the insignia 
of the United States or Allied forces, and the Commanding Officers 
of the sectors affected by the night flyings hesitated to give orders 
to sentries to open fire. 

The planes displayed red and green signal lights at high alti- 
tudes and one report shows that there was distinct communica- 
tion between two planes on the very line of the Aqueduct itself. 

What these planes were or where they came from has never been 
learned, although one sentry opined from the red and green lights 
that they were flying drug-stores. An investigation was conducted 
to ascertain their source, but without results, and this will prob- 
ably always remain as one of the many unsolved mysteries of the 
regiment. Whether or not the planes which during the latter 
part of August and the first of September, 1917, were a portion 
of the vast German program of destruction is not known, and 
probably never will be known, but in any event these birds of the 
night kept the line of the 2nd Battalion in an uproar during the 
period in which they operated. Many of the officers were frankly 
skeptical because of the fact that observation, the only possible 
advantage to be derived, would be minimized by the night itself. 

Regardless of what the purpose of the planes was, and regard- 
less of whether or not they were friendly, they gave the men of the 
First Provisional a touch of battle-front life that added stimulus 
and zeal to the guard duty among the mountains. The report 
on the entire subject was made on Sept. 3rd to the Department of 
the East at Governors Island. 



SEPTEMBER * 

ON Sept. 4th, Col. J. Weston Myers shipped by motor-truck 
to the headquarters of the regiment a Colt's machine-gun 
and carriage, to be mounted at the Breakneck access chamber, on 
the eastern bank of the Hudson River, one of the most vital points 
on the line. With the machine-gun came Sergt. James Murray, 
Q. M. C, later assistant editor of The Watchdogs Sergt. Edmond 
Dixon, who later became invaluable to Major Hodges as Bat- 
talion Sergeant-Major of the ist Battalion, and Private Thomas 
O'Connor, who was attached to the Adjutant's office. 

Sept. 8th, Lieut. Clarence Bechtol, who had received his pro- 
motion as of Aug. 7th was assigned to the headquarters of the 
2nd Battalion, where he took the place of Lieut. Stewart Richards, 
who had served as Battalion Adjutant since Aug. 12th. Lieut. 
Richards went to Sector North i, Olive Bridge. 

Lieut. John Towner made his first appearance as such at 
Regimental Headquarters on the following day. 

Monday, Sept. loth was marked by two events, one of which 
nearly cost the First Provisional Regiment the services of the 
man who as second in command meant so much to it throughout 
its entire career. Returning from Peekskill about four o'clock 
in the afternoon, the car containing Lieut.-Colonel Burnett and 
Sergt. Leroy Briggs, his chauffeur, crashed into a tree at the foot 
of a snaky drop in the road a mile north of Yorktown Heights. 
It was the result of a skid on the soft earth at the edge of the road, 
and the results were disastrous. Residents of the farm-house near 
the scene of the accident were terrified a few moments later when 
their front door opened and two men in uniform, drenched with 
gore, and their faces badly ripped and torn, staggered into the 
living-room. Colonel Burnett's jaw had been broken when his 
face crashed down onto the steering wheel, and as late as a year 
afterward fragments of the horn button were taken from the 
alveolar process. Flying glass had severed an artery in the 

* At this point the story of the regiment's affairs takes on the form of a chrono- 
logical narrative, touching briefly on events and policies that are more minutely 
and more intimately considered in the special chapters which form the second 
part of this work. 



SEPTEMBER 69 

sergeant's throat and he was rapidly bleeding to death when the 
flow was staunched. 

A car was pressed into service and the men taken to the Peekskill 
Hospital, while headquarters was notified. The flying red Stutz, 
which became so well identified with Captain De Garmo and the 
Supply Company never made better time than it did in that fast, 
furious run from headquarters to the scene of the accident with 
the Supply Ofiicer and the Adjutant. The car then proceeded to 
the hospital, where it was learned that, although both men were 
badly injured, they would live. Colonel Burnett suff'ered more from 
shock than did Sergeant Briggs and was incapacitated for some 
time. 

The other event was the rehef of Battery A, V. C. A., commanded 
by Captain Brodie, on the south end of the line, covering sectors 
S 9-A and 9-B. Under charge of Lieut. H. P. Williams, a detach- 
ment of the 1st Field Artillery, commanded by ist Lieut. Charles 
Cartwright, and 2nd Lieut. E. P. Smaney, moved onto this sector, 
Lieut. Cartwright taking over S. 9-A, with headquarters at Fort 
Hill road, and Lieut. Smaney on S 9-B, with headquarters at 
Tuckahoe. 

The business relations of the men of the V. C. A. had made 
necessary the relief of the organization, and the same was equally 
true of Troop H of Rochester on the line of the 2nd Battalion, 
Sector N-5, where many of the members were men connected 
with industries necessary to the government. 

To relieve Troop H, Troop G of Utica, commanded by Capt. 
Addison Westcott, 64 strong, with ist Lieut. Albert Gilbert and 
2nd Lieut. Cliff"ord Servatius, left Utica on Sept. nth, and re- 
ported to Major Lamb at Walden. This organization, of which 
more will be told later, was remarkable in the preponderance of 
Syrians who had been enlisted through the efforts of ist Sergt. 
James J. Jabbour. These men, having been advised that because 
of the laws of war, they, as subjects of Turkey, would receive 
summary treatment at the hands of the Central Empires, could 
not enter the regular army, enlisted en masse for the service on 
the Aqueduct, and their work, despite the handicap of little 
knowledge of the English language, was very satisfactory. They 
were faithful guards, cautious in the extreme concerning the passing 
of outsiders, and quick — perhaps a little too quick — on the trigger. 
What they lacked in military knowledge they made up in en- 
thusiasm. Some of them were former members of the Arabian 
Cavalry and practically every one was a specimen of physical 
perfection. 

"The Assyrians Came Down," established Camp Alaska at the 



70 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

intersection of the Aqueduct and the Orange County Traction 
Company's line, and proceeded to make the place livable. In this 
they succeeded admirably, and their guard duty was all that 
could be desired. Troop H, upon being relieved, returned to 
Rochester, and with the return of the troop went Regimental 
Sergt.-Major Herbert W. Speares, who under Special Orders No. 
25 was relieved from further duty with the First Provisional 
Regiment with the express thanks of the Commanding Officer for 
his service. Of Sergeant-Major Speares and the work which he 
did with the administrative department of the regiment more 
will be found in the chapter on the regiment's paper-work. His 
place as regimental sergeant-major was taken by Thomas W. 
Therkildsen, Company F, loth Infantry, who had been assigned 
to the Adjutant's office some time earlier. 

It was also on Sept. nth that Battery A, ist Field Artillery, 
of Syracuse, entered the field 60 strong, under command of Capt. 
Leo C. Harte, with Grover C. Weed as ist Lieutenant and F. C. 
Stone as 2nd Lieutenant, to relieve the remaining unit of the 
Veteran Corps of Artillery, located at Kensico. Officers and men 
of the Veteran Corps detailed to special duty, such as the map 
detail. Major Hodges, Captain Lane, Lieut. Williams, Lieut. 
Clinton and Captain Kingsbury, remained on duty, as did Sergt. 
J. Hart Welch, assigned to Regimental Headquarters as mechanic, 
but this date marked the passing of the V. C. A. as a unit part of 
the First Provisional Regiment. The service of the organization 
had been of inestimable value, and had spanned a period in which 
there was a crying need for men. It gradually became apparent 
that Colonel Rose's plan was to standardize his regiment and per- 
fect its organization as speedily as possible. It was, therefore, 
necessary to bring into the field only units prepared to serve for 
an indefinite period, and such units were Troop G and Battery A. 
It was only gradual disintegration due to federal service and re- 
lease for cause that finally resulted in the loss of these two units 
as such. 

On the 13th, Major James A. Blair of the Adjutant-General's 
Office, Capt. Hayden J. Bates, Q. M. C, arrived at headquarters 
to discuss the question of barracks with Major Hodges, who had 
been designated by Colonel Rose as officer in charge of construc- 
tion. The matter of barracks had been taken up ten days previous 
with the office of the Adjutant-General by Colonel Rose. The 
entire story of the building of the barracks of the First Provisional 
Regiment and the housing of the regiment generally is elsewhere 
discussed in detail. 

On Sept. 14th the following report was submitted to the Division 



SEPTEMBER 71 

of Defense and Security, office of the Adjutant-General, showing 
sectorization of the regiment and the troops covering the various 
sectors. This sectorization maintained for the greater part until 
the end of the service and should be noted carefully with reference 
to the sectional maps of the line which bear the sector boundaries 
and numbers:* 

North I, Captain A. Broadbent, Co/s A and B, ist Inf. 

Esopus siphon to Peak tunnel 
" 2, Captain Wilbur, Co. H, ist Inf. 

to Bonticou tunnel 
" 3, Lieut. Van Nouhuys, Troop B, ist Cavalry 

to downtake chamber Walkill pressure tunnel 
" 4, Captain Jackson, Detachments of Co.'s C and K, ist 
and loth Inf. 

to St. Elmo siphon south 
" 5, Captain Westcott, Troop G, ist Cavalry 

to Culvert 91 
" 6, Captain GifFord, Co. F, loth Inf. 

from Culvert 92 to Cornwall 
South I, Captain Johnson, Hudson River to Garrison tunnel 

Battery C, ist Field Artillery 
" 2, Captain Roche, 69th Depot Unit 

to Peekskill siphon 
" 3 & 4> Captain Thompson, 4th Co., 9th Coast Artillery 

to Croton Lake 
" 5, Captain Van Zandt, Co. B, 12th Inf. 

to Saries Hill 
" 6, Captain Miles, Co. D, 7th Inf. 

to Kensico Dam 
" 7, Captain Harte, Battery A, ist Field Artillery 

to Kensico tunnel 
" 8, Lieut. Launt, Co. F, ist Inf. 

to Elmsford tunnel 
" 9, Lieut. Smaney, Batteries B and D, ist Field Artillery 

to New York City Line 

Shaft No. 2, New Croton Aqueduct, was discontinued as a 
guarded point on the i6th. This was on Sector S-5, covered by 
Captain Van Zandt, and had been secured by the Department of 
Water Supply, Gas & Electricity of the City of New York against 
possible attack by a huge concrete slab, although it was directed 
inspected daily. 

* These maps will be found in the cover-pockets at either end of the book. 



72 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

The strength of the regiment and the respective strengths of 
the 1st and 2nd Battalions were fixed by General Orders No. 12, 
on Sept. 17th, at the time of the next general troop movement. 
The strength of the ist Battalion, including that of the Head- 
quarters Company, which was administered by headquarters, was 
placed at not to exceed 695 men at any one time, while the strength 
of the 2nd Battalion was placed at a maximum of 503, thus allow- 
ing a margin of two for the map detail which had been asked for 
from the former V. C. A., now the 9th C. A. C. General Orders 
directed the effecting of the permanency of commands as speedily 
as possible. 

For some time there had been a deal of agitation regarding 
members of Company F, loth Infantry, who were needed at 
home for various reasons. On the 17th, to clear up the situation, 
as well as to relieve a number of men physically unfit in other 
units, 35 men from Company F, 16 men from Company C, ist 
Infantry, and 21 from Company K, loth Infantry, were relieved 
from duty. Capt. E. Madden Decker, Company i, ist Infantry, 
brought into the field from Middletown, 61 men who were dis- 
tributed so as to fill the gaps made by the departure of those re- 
lieved. Later this distribution was found to be unsatisfactory 
and Captain Decker's men were consolidated on Sector N-4. 

1st Lieut. William J. Rivers, who had been promoted from 
the first-sergeantcy with which he entered the field, was relieved 
from duty on Sept. i8th, but later returned, as will appear 
in the succeeding pages. Capt. Arthur Conner in command of 
Sector S-8 had been strengthened by the bringing of 2nd Lieut. 
R. C. Launt into the field, and about this time Captain Conner's 
business affairs became such that it was necessary for him to 
secure an extended leave of absence. 

On the 2ist, Captain Jackson, who had been in command of the 
sector from Shaft No. 6 at Ireland Corners to the St. Elmo siphon, 
reported his 51 enlisted men to Captain Gifford in charge of the 
Vail's Gate Sector, and was relieved of command as an officer of 
the 2nd Battalion. This resulted in the consolidation of Captain 
Decker's command under their own officer at Gardiner. Captain 
Jackson was for a time attached to Regimental Headquarters 
and later relieved from duty. 

Captain Conners was, under Special Orders No. 34, on Sept. 
25th, relieved from duty and Lieutenant Launt placed in charge 
of the sector permanently. It should be noted at this point that 
Lieut. Launt maintained one of the best sectors in the regiment 
during his period of occupancy on Sector S-8. 

On Saturday, Sept. 22nd there appeared the first number of 



SEPTEMBER n 

the ''?????," the unnamed regimental newspaper, for which the 
regiment later selected the name of The Watchdog. Published at 
Yonkers by the Gazette Press Company, with Capt. T. R. Hutton, 
Regimental Adjutant, as editor, Sergt. James Murray as assistant 
editor. Captain Rowland Pell as business manager, and Sergt. 
Joseph Chase, V. C. A., as art editor, it was delivered (some 1,200 
copies in all) along the line of the First Provisional Regiment by 
automobile. Of The Watchdog, its origin, history, publication 
and decease, a detailed account will be found in the chapter en- 
titled, ''Literature of the Regiment." 

Up through the wind and rain of a wild stormy night, on the 
evening of Sept. 24th, came the first pay checks of the First Pro- 
visional since the entry of the regiment into the field. Major 
F. M. Crossett and Captain Pell carried the checks from one end 
of the line to the other and were greeted everywhere with cheers 
and even wilder manifestations of joy. 

Capt. R. L. Winne, 9th C. A. C, reHeved Capt. John M. Thomp- 
son in command of Sector S-3-4, with company post at Crom- 
pound road, in the latter part of September, and served during 
his period until Oct. ist. About this time (Sept. 27th) Louis M. 
Baker, who had entered the field as supply sergeant of the Head- 
quarters Company and who had been promoted to 2nd lieutenancy, 
was returned to home station as the result of the promotion. 
At one time and another the First Provisional Regiment suffered 
the loss of a number of good officers as the result of promotion, 
which left no place for them in the field, perhaps the best examples 
of this being the necessary release of Majors Wilbur and Damon 
a short time later in the fall of 1917. 

Second Lieut. B. L. Green was relieved from duty with the regi- 
ment on the 28th, and ist Lieut. W. J. Rivers returned to duty. 

On the following day, Lieut. Charles A. Clinton, who had served 
from the beginning as the Medical Officer of the 2nd Battalion, 
was relieved from duty because of private-practice reasons and 
resumed private life until the following summer, when he again 
joined the regiment, remaining with it to the end. Capt. F. M. H. 
Jackson was relieved from duty on the 29th. 

It was on the same date that the First Provisional Regiment 
added unto itself one of the greatest single assets that it ever 
possessed, in the person of Dr. Charles Emerson Townsend, of 
Newburgh, chief surgeon of St. Luke's Hospital of that city, and 
a warm personal friend of the Commanding Officer of the regiment. 
As one of the best-known surgeons and physicians in the Hudson 
Valley, Major Townsend, as Chief Medical Officer of the First 
Provisional Regiment, was absolutely invaluable. Of his work 



74 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

more will be said in detail in the chapter which has to do with the 
health and sickness of the regiment. 

Major Townsend made his headquarters at Newburgh, with 
the general health of the regiment in his charge, Capt. Jerome 
Kingsbury taking responsibility for the ist Battalion, and ist 
Lieut. Milton Aaronowitz, of Albany, being assigned to the 2nd 
Battalion, filling Lieut. Clinton's place, with headquarters at New 
Paltz. 

The bulk of the transportation promised by the City of New 
York having been delivered to the regiment by Sept. 29th, there 
was issued on the 30th, General Orders No. 14, forbidding the 
further hire of motor transportation by any officer or enlisted 
man connected with the First Provisonal Regiment. 

September, the second month of the regiment in the field, 
ended in a blaze of golden, sunshiny days and crispy nights. 
It was also marked by the publication of the battalion ratings of 
the 2nd Battalion for the month of September. This system of 
ratings evolved by Major Lamb as an incentive to the various 
companies of his command, was later adopted throughout the 
regiment and the results were all that could be desired. 

Major Lamb's explanation of the system printed in The Watch- 
dog in connection with the battalion ratings were as follows: 

"For the purpose of increasing the efficiency of this battalion 
it is proposed, starting Oct. ist, to give each of its units a monthly 
rating based on its work in the field during the previous month. 
The maximum rating to be obtained by a unit is 100 points. 

"Of these 100 points, 40 are for efficiency shown by the men 
in guard duty; 30 for sanitation as prescribed by F. S. R. 331, 
and 30 for soldierly appearance both on and off guard duty. 

The ratings of the 2nd Battalion for September were as follows: 



Organization 
Troop H, 1st Cavalry (11 days) 
Company A, ist Infantry. . 

Troop B, 1st Cavalry 

Company F, loth Infantry. . 
Company H, ist Infantry. . 
Company B, ist Infantry. . 
Troop G, 1st Cavalry (20 days) 
Company C, ist Infantry. . . 



uard- 


Sani- 


Appear- 




ing 


tation 


ance 


P,C, 


33 


26 


26 


85 


33 


26 


24 


83 


33 


22 


26 


81 


33 


23 


24 


80 


33 


20 


22 


75 


28 


24 


23 


75 


23 


24 


19 


66 


10 


15 


15 


40 



OCTOBER 

THE 1st of October, which was to be one of the most critical 
months in the history of the regiment, brought 2nd Lieut. Avery 
E. Lord, of Utica, to duty at Regimental Headquarters, where he 
was attached to the Adjutant's office. As a former newspaper man 
it was natural that he should become identified with The Watchdog, 
and. Sergeant Murray having been returned to home station be- 
cause of illness, Lieut. Lord stepped into the position of assistant 
editor, which he held until the end of the paper's existence. On 
the same day the regiment had its first General Court Martial in 
session at Regimental Headquarters, with Lieut. -Colonel Burnett 
as President and Lieut. Lane as Judge-Advocate. One case was 
of a man charged with wilfully maiming himself by shooting him- 
self in the foot and the other with attempting to stir up mutiny. 
These cases, as well as all of the court matters of the regiment, 
are so well handled in Captain Lane's chapter on the legal end 
of it that they are only mentioned here because they were the 
first. 

On the 3rd orders were issued relieving Lieut. H. P. Williams 
from duty as Summary Court Officer of the ist Battalion, 
effective the 5th, and delegating the duty to Lieut. Henry B. 
Welsh of the 9th C. A. C, attached to Captain Thompson's 
sector. This is the initial entry of Lieut. Welsh into this narra- 
tive and it would be impossible to allow the occasion to go by 
without one of the best Junior cot stories on the line. Lieut. 
Welsh was considerably over six feet in height, with frame ac- 
cordingly, and the J. C. did not meet his needs at all. One of the 
first glimpses had of him by officers from headquarters was when 
he was asleep, and the picture was one that will remain a long 
while. His head rested on a blanket-covered soap-box, the central 
portions of him on the sagging Junior cot and his lower legs and 
feet on a soap-box. Unfortunately it was one of those pictures 
for which there was no camera. 

At headquarters the men's and officers' mess halls had been 

finished and the work of flooring and framing the tents used to 

house the offices, officers and non-commissioned officers had been 

going forward rapidly. This date found practically all framed, 
6 



^(^ H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

with the exception of the tent-shack which was to house the 
office of The Watchdogs and the telephone equipment at the ex- 
treme right of the office or front row, between the Adjutant's 
office and the mess hall. On the night of the 4th this was dedi- 
cated with powdered rosin, orange juice, water and gore as the 
first of the First Provisional's stated boxing bouts was staged. 
The match was witnessed by Colonel Rose and the main event 
of the evening was between John Hoffman of Battery A and 
Robert Dorn of the Supply Company. 

Incidentally, the officer's mess hall was opened on that evening, 
with a number of guests present. Headquarters was beginning to 
assume the appearances of such, and the officers, although work- 
ing an average of sixteen hours a day, had opened a pistol range 
in a rear lot near the stables that had been built to house the 
mules assigned to headquarters by the Chief Quartermaster. 

There were two dark figures on the horizon of headquarters 
at this time, one named Binks Blair and the other Charles Skinner, 
the former a diminutive black boy from Utica and the other a far 
from diminutive black man from White Plains. Neither was suc- 
cessful, but both were amusing. Skinner, with all the superstition 
of his race, was never at ease from the time he entered the camp 
until he finally left, thanks to the pranks of the Headquarters 
Company. One night he found a snake coiled in his bed and spent 
the remainder of the night sleeping on his hands and knees. 
Eventually both were returned to home station. 

On the 4th, orders went out which lopped 57 men from the 
total strength of the sector covered by the men of the 1 2th Infantry. 

The 5th marked the end of the service given by the 7th Regi- 
ment, beginning with the date on which the First Provisional 
took the field. The 7th had furnished three detachments: the 
first, Company C, under Capt. J. R. Stewart; the second. Company 
D, under Capt. W. B. Miles; and the final one. Company B, com- 
manded by S. M. Richardson. The 7th men had sustained the 
traditions of their regiment on the Pleasantville sector, and had 
made many friends for the First Provisional in that section. Their 
guard duty was of the best and their humor matched it. This 
humor nearly led to disastrous results for the Regimental Adju- 
tant in the early stages of the game and furnished one more inci- 
dent to the First Provisional's line lore. 

The post encampment was located near the Pleasantville 
Cemetery, where one of the wags of the company had placed on a 
lot bearing the names of heroes of other wars, a war poster, 
reading: 

"WAKE UP AND DO YOUR BIT" 



OCTOBER 77 

The sentry on Post i was pacing up and down one night when 
in the moonlight he discovered what he thought to be a movement 
among the white stones of the graveyard. 

He rubbed his eyes and looked closely. Yes, that was certainly 
a movement. Two shadowy forms detached themselves from the 
clustering shadows of the tombstones and rolled silently through 
the lots, floated over the stone wall, and then reappeared, now 
whiter in the moonlight, at the near edge of the cemetery. Back 
in the camp a dog set up a weird howl. 

The sentry opened his mouth to call, but the words stuck in his 
throat. He remembered the challenging poster placed in the 
graveyard in a moment of thoughtlessness. Supposing some of 
those old ducks in there had taken it into their heads to rebuke 
this carelessness and lack of reverence in a later generation, and 
had taken up the challenge of the poster. The man on post 
swallowed hard, but finally he got it out of him. 

''Halt!" he challenged; and then, without waiting to see what 
happened, warned, "If you don't stop right where you are Fm 
going to shoot." 

"It's the Adjutant and the Regimental Sergeant-Major," came 
the reply. 

"You stay where you are until I call out the corporal of the 
guard," was the answer. He was not taking any chances with 
possible spooks. 

The visitors thought that the treatment they received was a 
little queer, but it was not until a week later that they learned 
who they were supposed to represent when they appeared in the 
graveyard. 

The 7th was relieved by ist Lieut. Nicholas Muller and 50 
men of the 69th Infantry. By birth a native of Lorraine, Lieut. 
Muller carried the accent of his native land with him to the line, 
and in the course of his service was several times accused of being 
of German extraction by disgruntled enlisted men or civil- 
ians, but his work with the First Provisional Regiment, as 
Company Commander, Battalion Inspector and Regimental Sup- 
ply Officer, was his best answer. He was one of the most valuable 
officers in the entire history of the regiment and his work was such 
as to bring to him the warmest of commendation from those who 
really knew. 

Twenty-five men of the 69th went to Sector S-9-B to strengthen 
the line at that point. On the same date there was a release and 
replacement of approximately 40 men of the 9th C. A. C. 

In the program of making the personnel of the regiment per- 
manent, Colonel Rose brought into the field on the 7th, Lieut. 



78 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

Harvey Miller of Company C, 3rd Infantry, from Syracuse, with 
35 men. The detachment of Company C of Watertown, at that 
time serving under Capt. Decker, was relieved, together with ist 
Lieut. Rivers, Lieut. Smith and his men taking the place of those 
relieved. On the same date Lieut. Edward Strauss, 12th In- 
fantry, and Lieut. Edward Murphy, 12th Infantry, were relieved 
from duty with the regiment, to meet the reduction of officers 
made necessary by the changes. 

The first and only death of a civilian at the hands of members 
of the regiment marked the 8th of October, when shortly after 
noon Thomas Bennett, a fourteen-year-old boy living near the 
Aqueduct, was shot and killed by Private Peter Gallagher, Battery 
B, 1st F. A. The report of the coroner in the case, Lieut. H. B. 
Welsh, showed that Bennett had been killed by Gallagher, and 
Gallagher was later tried by court martial and convicted. Of 
Gallagher and his rehabilitation more appears later. 

Twenty-four enlisted men of Company M, ist Inf., under com- 
mand of 2nd Lieut. Harry J. Kerr, arrived on the line of the 2nd 
Battalion Oct. 15th, and were assigned to the Olive Bridge Sector. 

It was also on Oct. 15th that the Guard Card System of the 
First Provisional Regiment, explained in the chapter on The 
Impregnable Line, was put into effect, affording a check on every 
tour of the guard duty and every inspection throughout the 
regiment. 

On the 1 8th the regiment went through its first check roll- 
call experience. The idea of a check roll-call on a company was 
not new, but one which would show exactly where every man in 
the regiment was and what he was doing at a given time was new 
enough to surprise even the First Provisional, which by this time 
had arrived at the point where it was surprised at nothing. 

The first call was at 3.15 p.m. and was no more than finished, 
when at 8.15, before the regiment had fairly recovered from the 
shock, a call was sent out for another one. And so it was that twice 
within eight hours the headquarters of the regiment accounted 
by telephone for every last man, from the Colonel to the latest 
recruit from Ashokan to Hillview. 

Not all of the commands caught the idea of just what was 
meant by what a man was doing, and such reports as, "Washing 
his face," "Playing cards," "Watching a card game," etc., etc., 
appeared opposite the names of many men not on actual guard 
duty. From the 12th Infantry came the banner report: 

"John Jones In bed, thinking." 

Another unit showed one man washing his feet at 8.15 that had 
not appeared on the 3.15 call. "He enlisted since the last check," 



OCTOBER 79 

was the explanation given when the headquarters stenographer, 
who had handled the same company on the previous call, asked 
about the difference. 

The total strength of each company checked against the morn- 
ing report of the day, or explanation had to be given as to the 
difference. A sample sheet of the first check roll-call is included 
in the chapter on Paper-work. 

The First Provisional's Regimental March, "The Good Old 
N. Y. G.," by Lieut. Clinton, made its official debut at head- 
quarters on the night of the 22nd, when Colonel Rose, Lieut.- 
Colonel Edward E. Powell of Binghamton, Captain Edwin H. 
Moody of Binghamton, and the officers of the headquarters 
gathered around a melodeon presented by friends in Ossining to 
try it out. The song is printed in the chapter on Regimental 
Literature. 

It was during this period that Lieut. Adelaide B. Bayliss of 
Bedford and New York, attached to the National League for 
Women's Service, played an important part in the history of the 
regiment laying foundations for an auxiliary motor service 
which continued through one agency or another from that time 
until the First Provisional finished its work. The transportation 
facilities at headquarters were always at minimum, as they were 
on every portion of the line, but as a result of Lieut. Bayliss' 
work there was built up a small but efficient auxiliary corps which 
saved headquarters in many a transportation pinch. The work 
of Lieut. Bayliss, Lieut. Turner, Captain Rupprecht and others 
is given detailed consideration in the chapter on Transportation. 

The first recognized contact with the Federal Government in 
the matter of aeroplanes has already been cited. Another came 
on October 23rd, when, under orders from the Adjutant-General, 
the ship-yards of the International Shipbuilding Company at 
Nyack were inspected by Major Hodges and the Regimental 
Adjutant, with a view of reporting on the necessary number of 
men required for the guarding of this plant. For a time it was the 
intent that the First Provisional should take over this work also, 
but nothing came of it. 

On Oct. 26th, Capt. Benedict Gifford was relieved from further 
duty with the First Provisional Regiment, Captain Gifford having 
been in command of Sector-N-6 since the entrance of the regiment 
into the field. 

Forty-two men of Company E, 14th Infantry, under Capt. 
John H. Blume, were placed under orders at their armory on 
Oct. 27th and entered the field shortly after that date. This was 
the first unit to go through a training period at Regimental Head- 



8o 



H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 



quarters and the work which Captain Blume's men did on Sector 
S-9 in later days proved the value of the training idea. This, 
due to the ever-present shortage of men, was not always possible 
of execution. 

October closed with the release of Lieut. H. P. Williams from 
active duty and the assignment of Capt. John Moore Perry, 
formerly of the V. C. A., to the position of inspecting officer of the 
1st Battalion. A great portion of the Veteran Corps of Artillery 
had, under General Orders No. 45, A. G. O., been made the 9th 
Coast Artillery Corps, and the officers serving with the First 
Provisional, who had formerly been V. C. A. men, had been auto- 
matically transferred at home station, though still continuing in 
the field. 

Battalion Ratings for the Month 



FIRST BATTALION 

Battery A, ist F. A Captain Harte 89 

69th Infantry Captain Roche 835 

69th Infantry Captain Muller 73 

Battery C, ist F. A Captain Johnson 662 

1 2th Infantry Captain Van Zandt. . .605 

8th Coast Artillery Captain Thompson . . . 591 

Company F, loth Infantry . . . Lieut. Launt 575 

Batteries B and D, ist F. A.. .Lieuts. Cartwright 

and Smaney 562 



SECOND BATTALION 



Organization 
Co. H, 1st Infantry.. 
Co. A, 1st Infantry. . 
Troop B, Cavalry . . . 
Co. B, 1st Infantry. . 
Co. C, 3rd Infantry.. 
Co. F, loth Infantry. 
Troop G, Cavalry . . 
Co. I, 1st Infantry. . 



Guard 


Sani- 


Soldierly 


Aggre 


Duty 


tation 


Appearance 


gate 


38 


26 


26 


90 


36 


27 


24 


87 


35 


21 


26 


83 


32 


25 


24 


81 


30 


23 


24 


77 


28 


19 


24 


71 


26 


21 


24 


71 


30 


16 


24 


70 



NOVEMBER 

NOVEMBER opened with the naming of the regimental paper, 
The Watchdog, and a speech to the men of the 9th C. A. C. 
by Colonel Rose at a review tendered him at the 9th Coast Armory. 
The first snow covered the Catskills, and barracks-building 
speeded to the utmost. On the 5th, ist Lieut. Earle Charles 
Waterbury, M. C, of Pine Bush, was brought into the field, 
remaining with the regiment until demobilization. Lieut. Water- 
bury was assigned to Regimental Headquarters and given charge 
of the line on the eastern side of the Hudson. 

On Nov. 6th, the regiment cast its first vote in the field, 
with regularly established polling booths at each post. At Regi- 
mental Headquarters Lieut. -Colonel Burnett cast the first ballot. 
A few days before the election Regimental Headquarters enter- 
tained a flying squadron of suffragist workers who spoke to the 
men along the line for the cause, under direction of Mrs. William 
Neely, of Tarrytown. 

The election board at headquarters consisted of Lieut. Towner, 
Sergt. -Major Therkildsen, Battalion Sergt. -Major Edmund J. 
Dixon, and ist Sergt. John J. Crotty. 

On Nov. loth Lieut. Russell Wiggins, Co. I, Middletown, was 
brought into the field and assigned to duty at Captain Decker's 
headquarters. 

The first formal guard mount in the regiment was held at 
Regimental Headquarters on Nov. 7th, with the training detach- 
ment of the 14th Infantry mounting the guard. Captain Blume as 
New Officer of the Day, Lieut.-Colonel Burnett as Old Ofliicer of 
the Day and Captain Hutton as Adjutant. 

The training detachment of the 14th moved onto the line on the 
1 2th, taking over S-9. This brought Lieuts. Cartwright and 
Smaney under Captain Blume, who made his headquarters at 
Fort Hill road at first. 

As a result of an officers' meeting called on the i6th for the 
various unit commanders of the ist Battalion, Capt. Leo C. Harte 
was assigned as assistant to Major Hodges for emergency work. 
There were various indications at this time which made Colonel 
Rose believe that the work of the line was slumping in spots, and 



82 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

the appointment of Captain Harte as General Inspector was one 
of the moves which answered this. How the remainder of it was 
answered and how the Hne was brought from a slump to a jump, 
is told in the portion of this work which deals with "The Impreg- 
nable Line." 

Captain Jerome Kingsbury was relieved from duty with the 
regiment on the 17th. On the following day Lieut. H. B. Welsh 
was relieved from duty. 

It was at this time that the authorized strength of the regiment 
was increased from 1,200 to 1,500 by orders of the Adjutant- 
General, and on Nov. 21st 80 men were accepted from the 100 
inspected by Regimental and Battalion Staff Officers at the 71st 
Regiment Armory. These men, under Capt. Frederick C. Kuehnle 
and 2nd Lieut. J. Noble Braden, were addressed by Colonel Rose 
at the armory at the time of their acceptance, and the difficulties 
and hardships of Aqueduct work explained to them. It was a 
severe picture that Colonel Rose painted, but when the opportunity 
was given to any who did not wish to serve to fall out, there was 
no response. The unit reported to Regimental Headquarters for 
a period of intensive training, after which it took over Sector 
S-3 and 4. Captain Kuehnle, one of the most efficient line 
officers ever brought into the field with the First Provisional, con- 
tinued to serve until the demobilization period of the regiment, 
being the last commanding officer of the 3rd Battalion, which 
was formed later. 

It was in the latter part of November that General Orders No. 
58, A. G. O., reorganized the New York Guard along geographical 
lines. The effects of this order upon the First Provisional Regi- 
ment were of a far-reaching nature, inasmuch as by it companies 
from which Colonel Rose had hoped to draw were transferred to 
other regiments. Company A of Utica became Company K of 
the loth, and Company B became Company L of the loth. Com- 
pany M of the old 1st Infantry was transferred to the loth, H of 
the 1st became H of the 4th, Captain Johnson's command was 
made the Machine Gun Company of the 4th Infantry, and Com- 
pany F at Elmsford became I of the loth. Company G of Oneonta 
became G of the loth, and so it was that the designation of the 
various companies on the line were changed. This should be 
borne in mind, as from this time on they are characterized under 
their new designations. 

Under the new order Captain Damon became a major, and 
Major Lamb was made aide on the staff of the Adjutant-General. 

For some time the Adjutant-General's Office had been taking the 
position that troops needed for replacement or additions on the 



NOVEMBER 83 

line of the First Provisional Regiment should be drawn as largely 
as possible from the City of New York, and this, in combination 
with the new situation, brought about by the reorganizing of the 
State forces, brought the regiment face to face with a serious 
problem — that of replacement. 

Thanksgiving Day was marked by turkey dinners and cran- 
berries, mince and pumpkin pies and all of the other good things 
of the day, at all points on the line, as a result of preparations 
made by the supply officers and Colonel Rose's orders. Head- 
quarters having moved to the Pines Bridge Manor establishment 
at the foot of Crow Hill, the headquarters Thanksgiving dinner 
was eaten there. 

The taking over of Pines Bridge Inn and the property for winter 
headquarters had been made necessary by the fact that the camp 
on Crow Hill had never been designed for winter housing of man. 
Although crowded, the winter headquarters were fairly comfor- 
table, the forward portion of the hotel building being occupied by 
the officers, who paid practically half the rental of the entire 
establishment, while the enlisted men occupied the rear portion. 

The old sitting-room on the ground floor of the hotel was turned 
into an officers' dormitory, while the dining-room was used as 
officers' mess and the kitchen as such for both officers and men. 
The hotel office was made the office of Colonel Burnett as Post 
Commander and was later also used by Major Hodges. The room 
immediately in the rear of this was used as an office by the bat- 
talion employees and the Post Commander's personal force. The 
large ball-room was floored over and became the men's mess and 
recreation room and drill-hall. The bar was closed and the room 
was used as a canteen. 

On the second floor in the forward part of the building were 
Colonel Rose's quarters. Colonel Burnett's room, and Major 
Hodges' rooms. In the rear of the second floor were the rooms 
occupied by Captain Lane and Lieut. Towner, Lieut. Waterbury, 
and Mr. and Mrs. Kelly, part owners of the hotel, who were re- 
tained by the officers for administrative purposes. 

The third-floor rooms were occupied by Captain Pell and Cap- 
tain Hutton, and later by Captain Scherman, Lieut. Therkildsen, 
and Lieut. Friend. During the winter the wives and families of 
some of the officers lived in the portion of the hotel rented by the 
officers. 

The regimental office, together with the office of The Watchdog, 
was established in the little white tenant building about one 
hundred yards east of the hotel, the most easterly room on the 
ground floor being used for the Adjutant's private office, while 



84 H-A-L-TT!— WHA-ZAA? 

the large room on the west side was used for the general office. 
Upstairs was the office of The Watchdog, and the guard card- 
sorting room, as well as sleeping-quarters for Lieut. Lord and 
Sergt.-Major Therkildsen, who was shortly afterward pro- 
moted to 1st lieutenant in the ist Infantry, having transferred 
from the loth. 

The movement of the headquarters necessitated considerable 
repair and improvement work, this being especially true in the 
office building and in the garage and stables. Four mounts, two 
mules, two horses, owned by the hotel estate, three cows, chickens, 
and some pigs made a full-sized job for Sergt. Hewitt Hendricks, 
who was stable sergeant of the Headquarters Company. The 
garage and machine-shop were in charge of Chief Mechanic J. 
Hart Welch, who had been with the regiment from its beginnings. 

The men's barracks was on the second floor of the rear building, 
and the office of the ist Sergeant was on the same floor. Taken 
altogether, the establishment made a very satisfactory winter 
headquarters, although it was isolated from the world and at 
times a very lonely place. 

The 71st Infantry detachment, arriving on Nov. 27th, took 
over the old camp on the hill, and on the morning of the 28th 
awoke to find snow covering the ground. On the 27th, Capt. 
Eugene Scherman was made Regimental Inspecting Officer, and 
shortly thereafter began an inspection of the entire line from the 
north, checking subsistence and quartermaster property and in- 
ventorying against accounts. As the Commanding Officer was 
at the time considerably interested in learning just what food the 
men were getting. Captain Scherman was instructed to eat at 
every camp on the line, and so it was that there occurred what 
was commonly known at headquarters as ^'Scherman's march 
to see." 

"I am eating my way out," were the words placed in his mouth 
by the headquarters jesters, "and Til eat it out along this line 
if it takes all winter." 

The word soon reached headquarters that Captain Scherman 
was getting beans at every place he stopped to eat. When he 
reported the Lieut.-Colonel remarked, gravely, "Well, I suppose 
you've been having a fine time. Captain," and the regimental 
mess shouted. At the time there was written a little parody on 
"Marching Through Georgia," the last lines of which went some- 
thing like this: 

^^ And he^s been eating heans and pork, from Atwood to the sea: 
Scherman is marching from 'Shokan^" 



NOVEMBER 85 

The Scribner's Farm Sector was taken over by a squad from 
Captain Kuehnle's command on the 29th, and shortly afterward 
Captain Kuehnle took over the entire sector formerly commanded 
by Captain Thompson. 

November ended with a promise of snow in the air, and the 
following battalion ratings: 

Guard- 
Organization ing 

Co. H, 4th Infantry 38 

Co. A, loth Infantry 35 

Troop B, Squadron D 36 

Co. B, loth Infantry 35 

Co. I, 1st Infantry 30 

Co. C, 3rd Infantry 32 

Troop G, Squadron D 30 

Co. F, loth Infantry 31 



Sani- 


Appear- 




tation 


ance 


P,C. 


23 


26 


87 


25 


25 


85 


21 


27 


84 


23 


25 


83 


24 


25 


79 


20 


24 


76 


21 


25 


j6 


20 


24 


75 



DECEMBER 

WITH December came big changes. On the 3rd orders were 
issued for the formation of a third battalion, embracing 
that portion of the First Battalion south of Sarles Hill at the 
southern end of the line covered by the 12th Infantry, to take 
effect Dec. 5th. The three battalions as then constituted cov- 
ered the following territory: 

First Battalion: From the east side of the Hudson River 
to the southern limit of Sector S-5 
and embracing Sectors S-i to S-5, 
inclusive, Major W. L. Hodges com- 
manding. 

Second Battalion: From the South Tongore siphon to 
the Hudson River, including all terri- 
tory originally assigned to the regiment 
on the western side of the Hudson by 
S. O. 198, A. G. O. Major Charles J. 
Lamb commanding. 

Third Battalion: From the southern limit of Sector 
S-5 to the southern limit of the 
territory assigned to the First Pro- 
visional Regiment under S. O. 198, 
A. G. O. Capt. Leo C. Harte com- 
manding. 

Captain Harte established headquarters near Kensico Dam at 
Valhalla and Captain Perry was assigned to him as Inspecting 
Officer. Lieut. Stone acted as Battalion Adjutant in the absence 
of Lieut. Therkildsen, who, though named as Adjutant, remained 
at Regimental Headquarters as assistant in the Regimental 
Adjutant's office. 

Captain Lane was at the same time assigned Inspector of the 
1st Battalion, and Lieut. John Towner Adjutant of the ist Bat- 
talion. First Lieut. Edgar V. Friend, D. C, was for the purposes 
of administration assigned as Medical Officer, 3rd Battalion. 

Capt. Otto Thiede and 30 men of the 8th Coast Artillery Corps 



DECEMBER 87 

were inspected and selected on December 3rd, and four days later 
were moved into the field on Sector N-6, where Captain 
Thiede took command. 

On the night of the 6th of December word reached the head- 
quarters of the First Provisional Regiment, as the officers sat at 
mess, that the regiment had on that day been brigaded with the 
Second Provisional under Brigadier-General F. DeForest Kemp, 
by the Adjutant-General of the State. The regiment was no 
longer an individual unit, but a part of another organization, 
and its Commanding Officer responsible to an intermediate com- 
mander instead of the Adjutant-General of the State direct. 

While there was a general tightening of authority in the matter 
of purchases, something which had hitherto been left to the 
discretion of the Commanding Officer of the regiment as the man 
on the ground who knew the business, the regiment at that 
time went through but little change as a result of the brigading. 
The plans which Colonel Rose had worked out for the standard- 
ization of the organization, which had been intrusted to him, went 
forward to consummation, and purchase authority was the only 
point at which there was any change then. 

Capt. John M. Thompson's command was brought in from the 
line to headquarters for training-work when Sectors S-3 and -4 
were taken over by Captain Kuehnle's men, and ceremonies 
continued at headquarters well into December. 

Heavy snow had fallen on the 8th, a night which was largely 
spent on the line by Colonel Rose and the Staff Officers, inasmuch 
as the Commanding Officer believed that the time of the first 
storm, if at any time, the men and officers of the line would need 
to feel that headquarters was in close touch with everything. 

The storm of the 8th was but a foretaste of the terrific blizzard 
which began on the night of Thursday, the 13th, and which 
through the long, dark hours hammered savagely at the line 
from the Ashokan valleys to the southern end of the First Pro- 
visional's skeleton guard. Throughout Thursday night and for 
the greater part of Friday the blizzard whooped and tore through 
the mountains and valleys and piled the white drifts high in the 
siphons and made the cut and cover well-nigh impassable for the 
reliefs that staggered to and from their posts through the driving 
white. 

On the Bonticou sector men muffled to the eyes waited in the 
barracks for a moment's lull in the storm, and then broke out 
into the drifts, only to be hurled back against the side of the 
building by the terrific sweep of the gale and the beat of the wind- 
driven snow that whirled over them in clouds, converting 



88 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

them to white wind-smitten wraiths in a moment. Men coming 
in from the last posts on the sector struggled through the white 
banks for three painful hours in an effort to regain the warmth 
and safety of the barracks, and finally fell exhausted at the doors, 
too weak to help themselves as their comrades pulled them in 
from certain death on the very door-step of the barracks. 

Although minimum shifts were ordered all along the line, the 
physical struggle getting to and from post was such that it was 
impossible in most cases to give the men the benefit of the order. 
The very lives of the men on guard depended upon the system of 
patrolling non-commissioned officers in those hours of storm when 
men, arriving sweat-drenched and exhausted at their posts, were 
ready to drop quietly asleep in the heaping white mounds of 
snow that their weary feet could not keep from rising about them. 

If the spirit of the First Provisional had ever broken it would 
have broken on that wild night or during the snow-clouded hours 
of the morning that followed it. It was one of the worst storms 
known to the lower portion of the State in years, and on the ex- 
posed line of the Aqueduct it was evident in its most malignant 
form. Coated with storm-driven particles of snow from head to 
foot, their eyelashes clicking with ice-particles, and their faces 
drawn with the cold and exposure, men crawled into barracks 
for a few hours of storm-drugged sleep before going back to the 
tumult of the outside world again. Their clothes were wet and 
cold and in the barracks dried slowly, seldom in time for the next 
tour of guard duty. When waking-time came their muscles cried 
out against taking up the struggle with the drifts, and when these 
men of the Aqueduct toiled back to their posts it was with the 
slow mechanical movements of automatons. 

The spirit of the line was best typified at Breakneck, where, 
high on the shoulder of the mountain, William Spangenburg, of 
Endicott, stuck to his post for twenty-four hours, cut off from the 
rest of the world by drifts that made relief for him impossible. 

He and one other went onto the mountain Thursday night 
just as the storm was beginning. His comrade descended the 
mountain Friday morning, but when the relief tried to make its 
way to Spangenburg it found that the hard-pounded drifts in the 
narrow trail to the post made the mountain-top inaccessible. 
After hours of labor the relief turned back and reported failure. 

William Spangenburg could have left that post and descended 
the mountain, but when he saw that the relief had been unable 
to come up to him, he knew that descent meant desertion of the 
post. And more than this, Spangenburg knew, like every other 
man of the command, that there was a back trail over the moun- 



DECEMBER 89 

tain across which an enemy on show-shoes might come to wreak 
the havoc against which he and his comrades had guarded 
from their first days on the line. 

And so, with only a seven-by-nine canvas tent for shelter, and 
a Sibley stove for warmth as long as the little supply of wood 
should last, Spangenburg stuck it out through Friday. High 
on the mountain, where every wind that swept the Hudson Valley 
struck with full blast, the boy stood his guard through the day, 
not daring to sleep even for a moment, and with only the remnants 
of the lunch that he had taken up with him Thursday night. 

Colonel Rose was advised as to the situation late Friday after- 
noon and ordered that the boy be withdrawn from the mountain. 
By flash-signals from the base Spangenburg was told to come 
down, but it was only when he was made to understand that the 
order was direct from Regimental Headquarters that he gave up 
his post and floundered down through the drifts, utterly exhausted. 
He had remained on guard from eight o'clock Thursday night 
until eight o'clock Friday night. 

The storm broke all lines of transportation, and, especially 
in the little-traveled mountain districts of the line, isolated the 
camp for days. Motor trafiic was out of the question, and it 
was only by a prodigious amount of sleigh and team hire that the 
First Provisional was able to feed its posts and outposts during 
the days that followed. 

And from the top of ;<lhe line there came at its close, with the 
characteristically resurgent humor of the regiment that rose over 
all occasions, the laconic comment: 

*' Lieutenant Snowden." 

New boundaries were established for Sector S-4, and 
Captain Thompson was placed in charge on Dec. nth. Sector 
3's southern boundary was fixed at Culvert 155, while S-4 
included from 155 south, with the north and south Hunter Brook 
siphons, the Scribner's Farm section, and the Croton Lake out- 
post, including the screen-house. This relieved S-5 from re- 
sponsibility for the screen-house. 

On the 14th Lieut. Russell Wiggins was relieved from duty with 
Captain Decker at Gardiner, having served the regiment well 
during his short stay. Capt. Maurice Damon, having been pro- 
moted to Major, was relieved from duty with the regiment on the 
15th, after having served with the regiment for five months. 
Shortly after his release he was assigned to duty with the Second 
Provisional as Inspecting Officer. 



90 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

It was about this time that Lieut. H. P. Williams, who had 
served with the regiment in its earliest days afield, stimulated 
the monthly battalion efficiency rating contests with the presen- 
tation of efficiency flags for each battalion, to be flown by the 
company obtaining the highest rating for the month. The flags 
were of blue border and white center, with a large red "E'* for 
efficiency in the white field. With three-foot hoist and five-foot 
fly they gave pleasant tangibility to the efficiency marks, and the 
struggle for them was one which kept the companies of the regi- 
ment on their toes until the end of the long, hard game. 

On Dec. i6th, in accordance with G. O. 2, Provisional Bri- 
gade, the long-waited-for subsistence of 75 cents per man per day 
was authorized through the regiment by General Orders No. 41. 
This was a step which meant much to a regiment that was 
obliged to feed its men four and sometimes five times a day during 
the most severe weather in order to keep the bodies of the guards- 
men supplied with the proper amount of fuel to withstand the 
incessant sapping of the cold. Up to that time the authorized 
ration had been 65 cents a day. When the regiment entered the 
field originally the ration was 52 cents per day. 

The plan of bringing the organization up to full strength had 
gone forward to consummation as soon as possible after the issu- 
ance of the authorization, and the brigading of the regiment had 
made little or no difference in such matters at this time. Seventy- 
one enlisted men of the 47th Infantry, /VWider command of Lieut. 
Eugene Duffield, ist Lieut. Dennis Caulfield, and 2nd Lieut. 
John Travis had been inspected and selected, and under S. 0. 99 
this detachment was placed under orders on Dec. i8th, together 
with a detachment of 81 men of the 14th Infantry, under ist Lieut. 
Frederick A. Baldwin and ist Lieut. Edward J. Martin. The 
detachment of the 14th was moved onto the hne..on the 21st, being 
scattered along the sectors on the east side of the Hudson to 
temporarily plug gaps that could not be filled from home station 
at that time. The largest detachment went to Captain Blume 
on Sector S-9, where the 14th already had a unit. Fifteen men 
went to Nelson ville, 12 to Kensico, and 11 to Elmsford, while 
43, under Lieut. Martin, went to S-9. This reinforcement of 
Capt. Blume made it possible to consolidate most of the 8th C. A. 
C. men who had been sent him as temporary line stoppers, in 
Capt. Van Zandt's company. Capt. Thompson's detachment, 
which had been pretty well broken up, began to have the appear- 
ances of getting together again, but as a matter of fact gradually 
disintegrated, some of the men remaining at Regimental Head- 
quarters, where they were absorbed by the Headquarters Com- 




upper left — Chief Trumpeter Corrie, Sergt.-Drummer Thompson. 
Right — The C. O. and "Brownie." Center left— The O. D. (Captain 
Pell) and the O. G. (Lieut. Towner) enjoy a little joke. Right — Lieut.- 
Col. Burnett. Lower — Headquarters stables, Croton Lake. 



H 
m 

O 
> 






H r 

o 

CO 

m 
H 

o 

H 



o 

> 
> 

:z; 

> 

H 

a 




DECEMBER 91 

pany, and others falling away for the various causes of release, 
while the group at Scribner's Farm hung on last of all. 

The men of the 47th were thrown onto the line the day after 
Christmas, Lieut. Duffield and 23 men going to Sector N-i, 
10 to N-2, and 31 with Lieuts. Caulfield and Travis to New 
Paltz, where they took over the southern end of the N-3 
sector that had been covered by Troop B from the beginning. 

It will be noted that the losses of the regiment must have been 
heavy to necessitate this strengthening at all points in the line. 
For some of the original commands of the First Provisional, 
such as Troop B, it marked the beginning of the end. Troop B, 
for instance, had held its sector with a great deal of just pride, 
though constant losses by federal enlistment or draft had made 
its line a thin one and a weak one in the later days. When the 
47th took over the sub-sector and named the camp in which they 
were quartered Camp Riegelmann, the result was to stir up a 
healthy spirit of rivalry between the two organizations. But ever 
this failed to erase the fact that the old order of things had changed. 
The sector that was once the pride of the Troop B men had been 
lost, in part, to another organization, and the Troop B men felt 
it. This instance is cited at this point only to show the beginnings 
of the condition that arose later almost throughout the entire 
length of the line, due to the policy of bringing in New York City 
troops to the exclusion of replacements for up-State units from 
up-State. 

The new Commanding General of the newly created brigade 
paid his first visit to the headquarters of the First Provisional 
on the 15th, when the roads from Mt. Kisco to Croton Lake were 
still piled high with snow. With transportation at its usual low 
ebb around Regimental Headquarters, and this intensified by the 
snow that kept the automobiles in their garage, it became neces- 
sary to send a straw-filled box-sleigh and team after the General, 
with red chairs from the hotel dining-room standing nearly seat- 
deep in the straw and adding a touch of burlesque to the entire 
affair. Despite the snowdrifts, practically every officer on the 
east side of the Hudson River had managed to reach headquarters 
for the event, and General Kemp was greeted by a long line 
standing at salute on the porch of the hotel as he drove up. With 
him was Major E. J. Wilson, formerly of the Adjutant-GeneraFs 
office and acting Adjutant-General of the brigade. The dinner 
was of the simplest — corned beef and cabbage, with apricots for 
desert. At its conclusion General Kemp spoke at Colonel Rose's 
invitation, indicating that economy, efficiency and results would 
be the watchwords of the Provisional Brigade. He discussed 



92 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

the methods used in the Second Provisional Regiment along the 
line of the Barge and Champlain Canals, and said that he believed 
subsistence and housing to be the two things of greatest importance 
for the officers of the regiment to consider. 

On Monday General Kemp again returned to headquarters and 
conferences lasting throughout Monday and Tuesday resulted. 
The following day he met the officers of the Second Battalion 
at New Paltz. 

With snow heaped high around every barracks building on the 
line, Christmas was Christmas indeed for the men of the First 
Provisional. A day or so before the 25th there arrived at each 
barracks on the line a box filled with children's toys, and with 
them the men had a hilarious time. It was the idea of Colonel 
Rose and the toys made plenty of fun. Colonel Rose in a Christ- 
mas letter called the attention of the regiment to the more serious 
side of Christmas and asked for a coming year more full of self- 
sacrifice and undivided interest than the past one. 

Christmas itself was a great day. Every command on the 
entire line, as a result of arrangements made by the Commanding 
Officer with the Red Cross units along the Aqueducts, was given 
a Christmas dinner, either at its barracks or by detachments in a 
nearby community, and there was a present for every one. Mess 
halls and barracks were strung with holly and festooned with 
evergreens, and a Christmas tree flourished at practically every 
post. 

Perhaps the most remarkable thing about the 1917 Christmas 
on the First Provisional's line was that not a man nor an officer 
was absent from his post on the 24th or 25th. Realizing that 
not all could go home for the great day and that some were sure 
to be disappointed. Colonel Rose sent out a ruling a week ahead 
of time which put the bars up on all Christmas leaves. The results 
were satisfactory and left every one on the same status. With 
all barracks filled full there was no extra work for the few, and 
in order that the men might go to their Christmas dinners, officers 
in some instances took posts during the dinner periods. At head- 
quarters Major W. L. Hodges and Lieut. Avery E. Lord went to 
the Hunter's Brook siphons for the day, relieving men from post 
so they could go into Mt. Kisco for Christmas dinner. 

The year drew to a close with increasing cold, high drifts and 
creaking runners everywhere along the line of the First Pro- 
visional Regiment. With teams and sleighs the regiment had 
regained its normal in the matter of transportation and there 
was no lack of food or fuel along the line. The year in which 
so much had been accomplished closed quietly. 



DECEMBER 93 

Battalion Ratings 



THIRD BATTALION 



Soldierly 
Efficiency Sani- Appear- Aggre- 



on Guard tation ance 
Co. B, 69th, Capt. Muller. 
Bat'y A, 3rd F. A., Lt. Weed 
Co. F, loth Inf., Lt. Launt 
Co. E, 14th Inf., Capt. Blume 
Bat'y D, ist F. A., Lt. Cart- 
right 25 10 22 55 



36 


25 


25 


86 


33 


24 


23 


80 


35 


21 


24 


80 


33 


18 


22 


73 



I9I8 
JANUARY 

THE New- Year began with 1,396 men and 60 officers on the 
morning report, and a tragedy at night, for Private Thomas 
A. Stokes was fatally wounded at 11.45 p.m. on the night of the 
I St by a bullet fired from the rifle of one of the guards at Peeks- 
kill prison camp, where Capt. John M. Thompson had been 
placed in command. Stokes was taken to the Peekskill Hospital 
shortly after the accident by Dr. Waterbury, who was in Peekskill 
when Stokes was shot. The boy died at 2 p.m. on the following day 
after his family had arrived. Lieut. John Turner was designated 
as summary court to take coroner's proceedings in the case and 
he found that Stokes had met with death accidentally. 

Stokes' death placed a damper on the happiness of the New- 
Year which had been featured at headquarters with open house 
for the men and officers. The man in whose hands the rifle had 
been at the time of its discharge was brought to Regimental Head- 
quarters immediately as prisoner and remained there until the 
session of the General Court Martial convened in the case. Stokes 
was buried with full honors on Jan. 6th in New York. 

It was on the 5th that the First Provisional lost its second 
building by fire, the first one having been at old Camp Byrnes 
on the Crompound road near Peekskill early in the game. On a 
bitter-cold night the men of Troop B were called out to fight fire in 
the B. W. S. house at Outpost No. i on the northern end of the line. 
It was impossible to save the building in such condition that it 
would be of further use, and, although the sleeping quarters were 
saved, it was necessary to discontinue the use of the post. 

It was about this time that the First Provisional lost through 
promotion one of its best captains, J. Roy Wilbur, who since 
the first days of the regiment had been one of its strongest men. 
As a major he was obliged to return to home station, taking with 
him the thanks of the Commanding Officer and the respect of all 
who had been privileged to serve with him. Later Major Wilbur 
was to return to the regiment as a member on the final board of 
survey and spend the last days of the organization's existence with 



JANUARY gs 

his friends at headquarters. At the time of his return to home 
station he was presented with a loving-cup by his command. 

Mumps breaking out on the Hne of the 2nd BattaHon about 
the middle of the month resulted in the rental of the first field 
hospital in the regiment's history, on Chestnut Street in New 
Paltz. The epidemic was successfully checked and wiped out 
within a short time. 

On the 17th 25 men from the 23 rd Infantry and 25 men from 
Squadron C were brought onto the line of the 2nd Battalion, 
being distributed so as to fill the largest gaps in the various 
companies that were at this time steadily losing men. Capt. 
John M. Perry was relieved from duty with the First Provisional 
Regiment on January 21st. 

At this time the regiment also lost another good officer in the 
release of 2nd Lieut. A. Tremaine McKinstry, who had entered 
the field with the loth Infantry in the previous August and who 
had been one of the best men available in the regiment for barracks 
construction work. Lieut. McKinstry entered the aeronautic 
service of the Federal Government on the 22nd. At the same 
time the regiment gained a real officer in the person of Lieut. 
Clarence Higgs, who as a line officer and later as a member of 
the Headquarters Staff made good on everything he put his hand 
to. Lieut. Higgs' first assignment was on N-6. 

On the 22nd the regiment assumed responsibility for Shafts 
ii-a and ii-b of the Gould Swamp siphon at the request of the 
Department of Water Supply, Gas & Electricity of the City of 
New York. An outpost was established at this point. 

Capt. John M. Thompson, another of the veteran officers of 
the line, was relieved from duty on the 27th of the month, Sergt. 
Mark Rosenthal of the loth was commissioned 2nd Lieutenant 
and relieved from duty, and Lieutenant Harder of the lothwas com- 
missioned Captain, remaining on the line. On the 26th Lieut. 
Harry R. Lydecker of the 22nd Engineers reported for duty and 
was subsequently assigned to Scribner's Farm, where he remained 
until the expiration of his service with the regiment. This was 
another officer of real First Provisional ideas and ideals and his 
sector showed results. 

At the end of the month Capt. A. H. Westcott was relieved from 
duty in the 2nd Battalion and sent to Sector S-9-A, where he was 
placed in charge. 

The month of January was one of the most momentous in the 
history of the regiment, although little appeared on the surface 
to indicate it. It was during January that the Federal agents 
discovered a wide-spread plot for the destruction of shipping and 



96 



H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 



munitions in the City of New York, passed a word of warning 
which resulted in a bristle of bayonets on the waterfront. For 
some time the line of the First Provisional was shaken with in- 
sistent rumors that the regiment or a portion of it would be called 
into New York in case of emergency to take the brunt of any 
street rioting that might happen. This was lent color by an in- 
quiry sent out to the units of the First Infantry as to the number 
of men available for immediate duty, but the latter call was the 
direct result of advice given by General Kemp to be ready for 
draft losses, rather than because of any other immediate service 
of the First Provisional expected by headquarters. The January 
ratings were as follows: 



Efficiency 



Soldierly 



Organization Guard Sani- Appear- Aggre- 

Duty tation 

Co. H, 4th Inf 36 25 

Troop B, Squadron D . . . 34 25 

Co. C, 3rd Inf. 34 24 

Co. L, loth Inf. 36 23 

Co. I, ist Inf 33 23 

Co. K, loth Inf 30 22 

Troop G, Squadron D . . . 27 21 

Detachment 47th Inf... . . 26 20 

Co. F, loth Inf. 25 19 

Co. F, loth Inf. Under quarantine. 



mce 


gate 


24 


85 


25 


84 


24 


82 


21 


80 


23 


79 


23 


75 


22 


70 


21 


67 


21 


65 



FEBRUARY 

THE first year of armed occupation on the New York City 
water-supply line came to an end on the 3rd of February, but 
save for an anniversary edition of the regimental paper it passed 
without celebration of any kind. The 4th marked the first of the 
big troop transfers of the regiment, when 70 men of the ist Field 
Artillery, under command of ist Lieut. E. L. Martin, were moved 
from Sector S-9-A to N-5, and 66 men of Troop G and the other 
units covering Sector N-5 were moved to the sector evacuated 
by the ist Field Artillery on the same day. The movement 
began simultaneously at both ends of the line, with the sectors 
covered by the extension of other companies' lines during the 
time the troops were under way. 

On the north end of the movement the troops were badly de- 
layed by drifts on the Walden trolley line, and this held up the 
movement badly, but at 8 p.m. Captain Westcott took over Sector 
S-9-A from which Captain Blume was relieved of responsibility, 
and Lieut. Martin took over his sector at 11. 15 p.m. on the same 
day. Captain Cartwright having been relieved from duty on the 
first of the month. 

Twenty-three men of the 23 rd Infantry were brought onto the 
line early in the month, going to Scribner's Farm and to Sector 
S-8. As may be noted from the frequent references to changes 
at Scribner's Farm, this little sector was giving considerable 
difficulty and continued to do so until finally placed under con- 
trol of Captain Kuehnle with Lieut. Lydecker in command. 

Lieut. Albert Gilbert of Troop G, whose injuries in the pre- 
vious autumn have been mentioned, continued in such physical 
state at home station that he made application for relief from 
further duty with the regiment, and this was given early in 
February. 

Twenty-five men of the 13 th C. A. C. were brought onto the 
2nd Battalion line on the 13th, and 2nd Lieut. Louis H. Guterman, 
47th Infantry, was also brought into the field and assigned to 
duty with the 3rd Battalion on Sector S-8. 

Capt. Otto Thiede had been relieved from duty on Sector S-6 
and assigned in charge of the Prison Camp at Peekskill shortly 



98 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

after the release of Captain Thompson. On the 19th he was re- 
lieved from duty at the Prison Camp and assigned temporarily 
in command of Sector S-6 and 7. With the approval of the 
Armory Commission, Lieut. Weaver, Q. M. C, officer in charge 
of the Peekskill State Camp, was made officer in charge of the 
Prison Camp, although he was never carried on the morning re- 
ports of the regiment. While Lieut. Weaver was never on the 
pay-rolls of the First Provisional, he was in this as well as in 
many other matters, an efficient asset to the regiment and his co- 
operation while at Peekskill Camp was uniform and thorough. 

On the 2ist the respective strengths of the three battalions, 
the Headquarters Company, Supply Company and Prison De- 
tachment were fixed as follows : 



First Battalion 450 

Second Battalion 532 

Third Battalion 390 

Headquarters Co 40 

Supply Company 15 

Prison Detachment 10 



The Aqueduct Hostess House, near the line of the Aqueduct at 
Scarsdale, was opened with proper ceremonies on the 22nd for 
the men of the Aqueduct as the result of work done by a com- 
mittee of which Thomas Simpson was president. Lieut.-Colonel 
Burnett represented the regiment at the opening, with detach- 
ments from various companies and several staff officers present. 
Of the Hostess House and its work there is a detailed description 
in the chapter on recreation. 

President Edward Riegelmann of the Borough of Brooklyn, 
organizer of the 47th Infantry, paid a visit to the 47th men at New 
Paltz, on the 23rd, together with a party of 47th officers from home 
station. The trip was made through deep drifts and not without 
some little difficulty. President Riegelmann carried smokes and 
candies to the men at New Paltz and made a short address to 
them. The party was entertained at the City Club, Newburgh, 
at luncheon by Colonel Rose. 

The end of February was marked by two distinct changes in 
administration, Capt. George B. Snowden being assigned as 
Battalion Inspector of the 2nd Battalion, and Captain Thiede 
being assigned as Inspector of the 3rd Battalion, while Capt. 
F. M. Van Nouhuys, who had been the 2nd Battalion Inspector, 
was returned to his command at Troop B's post, and Captain 



FEBRUARY 



99 



Muller, who had been Battalion Inspector for the 3rd, went back 
to his company at Pleasantville. 

Spring was making its first tentative appearance along the 
lower line when February came to an end, although the snow still 
lay deep, and in the mountains of the north winter was undis- 
puted king. The battalion ratings for the month were as follows: 



SECOND BATTALION 

Sani- Appear- 

Organization Guarding tation ance P. C, 

Co. H, 4th Infantry 35 24 25 84 

Troop B, Squadron D. . . . 34 24 25 83 

Co. C, 3rd Infantry 35 25 23 83 

Co. L, loth Infantry 36 22 20 78 

Co. I, 1st Infantry 34 21 20 75 

Batt. B and D, ist F. A.. 30 22 22 74 

Co. K, loth Infantry .... 25 21 22 68 

Co. F, loth Infantry 24 22 20 66 

Det. Co. H, 8thC. A. C. 25 19 21 65 

Det. 47th Infantry 26 19 19 64 



THIRD BATTALION 



Organization Guarding 

Sec. S-9-B (Capt. Blume) 36 
Sec. S-6 (Capt. Muller).. 37 
Sec. S-8 (Lieut. Launt) . . 33 
Sec. S-7 (Lieut. Weed).. . 32 
Sec.S-9-A (Capt.Westcott) 34 



Sani- 
tation 

25 
24 
22 
21 
21 



Appear- 
ance 
26 
25 
23 
25 
22 



P. C. 

87 
86 

78 
78 
77 



MARCH 

THE regiment was reorganized in accordance with Colonel 
Rose's plan on March ist, as an organization of 12 Provis- 
ional Line Companies, a Machine Gun Company, Supply Com- 
pany, and Headquarters Company. 

The territory of the ist Battalion, commanded by Major 
Hodges, was at this time fixed from the Hudson River to the 
southern extremity of Sector S-5, with an authorized strength of 
450 men and comprising the following companies: 

C. — Sector S-i: Authorized strength 116 enlisted men and 
Capt. John W. Johnson, M. G. Co, 4th Infantry; ist. Lieut. O. 
D. Eaton, M. G. Co., 4th Infantry; 2nd Lieut. Le Roy Lamden, 
4th Infantry. 

B. — Sector S-2: Authorized strength, 98 enlisted men and 
Capt. John J. Roche, Co. A, 69th Infantry; ist Lieut. E. M. 
Kirkpatrick, Co. A, 69th Infantry; 2nd Lieut. Randall V. O'Grady, 
Co. A, 69th Infantry. 

D. — Sectors S-3 and -4: Authorized strength, 98 enlisted men 
and Capt. Frederick Kuehnle, 71st Infantry; 2nd Lieut. J. Noble 
Braden, 71st Infantry; 2nd Lieut. Harry R. Lydecker, 22nd 
Engineers. 

A. — Sector S-5, as formerly known, minus Shafts ii-A and 
ii-B, Gould's Swamp siphon and the Tarrytown outpost, which 
were assigned to Sector S-8: Authorized strength, 128 men and 
Capt. Ernest Van Zandt, 12th Infantry; ist Lieut. Irving J. 
Ussiker, 12th Infantry; 2nd Lieut. Arthur Wynne, 12th Infantry. 

The 2nd Battalion, with an authorized strength of 532 enlisted 
men, remained the same as to territory, taking in everything 
from the South Tongore siphon to the access chamber of the 
Hudson River Pressure Tunnel on the west side of the river, with 
Major Charles J. Lamb in command and comprising the following 
companies: 

E. — Sectors N-i-A and i-B: Authorized strength, 126 enlisted 
men and Capt. Alfred Broadbent, Co. K, loth Infantry; ist Lieut. 
Cornelius Vandecarr, Co. F, loth Infantry, a former sergeant on 
Sector N-6; 2nd Lieut. Harry J. Kerr, Co. M, loth Infantry. 

H. — Sector N-2: Authorized strength of 79 enlisted men and 



MARCH loi 

Capt. Charles H. Hinman, 4th Infantry; ist Lieut. Edward B. 
Suttle, 4th Infantry, a former sergeant of the company. 

F. — Sector N-3 : Authorized strength, 81 men and Capt. George 

B. Snowden, Co. L, loth Infantry; ist Lieut. Edgar B. Clerk, 
Troop B, Squadron D, Cavalry; ist Lieut. Dennis Caulfield, 47th 
Infantry; 2nd Lieut. John Travers, 47th Infantry. 

G. — Sectors N-4 and -5: Authorized strength, 169 men and 
Capt. E. Madden Decker, Co. I, ist Infantry; ist Lieut. Harvey 
Smith, Co. C, 3rd Infantry; ist Lieut. Stewart Richards, Co. L, 
loth Infantry; ist Lieut. E. J. Martin, 14th Infantry. 

Machine Gun Co. — Sector N-6: Authorized strength, 86 en- 
listed men and Capt. Edward L. Harder, loth Infantry; ist Lieut. 
Charles B. Cleary, loth Infantry; ist Lieut. Clarence Higgs, 8th 

C. A. C. 

The territory of the 3rd Battalion remained the same except for 
the additions to Sector S-8 heretofore noted, with Captain Harte 
in command and an authorized strength of 390 men, distributed 
among the following companies: 

M. — Sectors S-6 and -7: Authorized strength, 129 enlisted men 
and Capt. Nicholas Muller, 69th Infantry; ist Lieut. Grover C. 
Weed, 3rd F. A., and 2nd Lieut. James F. Keefe, 69th Infantry. 

I. — Sector S-8: So altered as to be bounded on the south by 
Pole No. 3291, at Landers road, and including Shafts ii-A and 
ii-B, Gould Swamp siphon and the Tarrytown outpost formerly 
covered by Sector S-5: Authorized strength, 96 enlisted men 
and 2nd Lieut. Rae C. Launt, loth Infantry; 2nd Lieut. Louis 
H. Gutterman, 47th Infantry. Lieut. Launt was left in charge 
of this sector, though a 2nd Lieutenant, because of his splendid 
work there. 

L. — Sector S-9-A, as modified, to include from Pole No. 3291 
at Landers road, to culvert opposite Pole No. 3561: Authorized 
strength, 97 enlisted men and Capt. Addison H. Westcott, Troop 
G, Squadron D; 2nd Lieut. Clifford Servatius, Troop G, Squad- 
ron D. 

K. — Sector S-9-B, as modified, to and including Hillview Reser- 
voir: Authorized strength, 78 enlisted men and Capt. John H. 
Blume, 14th Infantry; ist Lieut. Frederick A. Baldwin, 14th 
Infantry. 

This somewhat lengthy description of the reorganization is 
introduced at this point in rather full detail, that there may be 
no misapprehension or misunderstanding of the conditions pre- 
vailing from this time until the regiment left the line of the 
Aqueduct. As ever, the geographical factor of the service was 
dominant, and later, when troops were moved the moving com- 



I02 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

panics changed their company designations to conform to the 
sector on which they were located. The mission of the First 
Provisional Regiment dealt not with troops, but with certain 
physical things that must be guarded, and the reorganization of 
the regiment into companies was as a matter of fact merely the 
redesignation of geographical territory by letter. For instance, 
at a later date, Captain Johnson's command was moved from 
Cold Springs to Yonkers, but instead of relettering the sectors 
the company changed its designation, becoming Company K in- 
stead of Company C, inasmuch as it was a part of the 3rd Bat- 
talion, geographically, and on the sector which for geographical 
reasons gave to whatever company happened to occupy it the 
letter K. This practice saved much confusion in the adminis- 
tration of the regiment. 

Company commanders at once began bringing their units to 
authorized strength from available forces at home station and 
the strength charts for the regiment, which appear elsewhere, 
show that during the following two weeks there was a considerable 
gain. 

There was little of importance during the first part of March 
with the exception of replacement movements. On the 9th Private 
Aloysius Kelly of Company M, stationed at the Harlem Railroad 
siphon between Chappaqua and Pleasantville, was struck by a train 
while walking the tracks on his way to his camp and died that 
afternoon in White Plains Hospital, following an amputation. 

Private James Burke, Company G, 14th Infantry, attached to 
Provisional Company K, died on the nth as a result of pneu- 
monia, and was buried with military honors. Up to this time the 
death record of the regiment was low — but three men in the seven 
months of service in the field. 

Due to the appearance of ground glass in packages sent to 
some of the camps from anonymous sources, as well as the trouble 
from the same source at that time prevailing in the national army 
cantonments, there issued from headquarters, on March 19th, 
General Orders No. 28, prohibiting the receipt of food packages 
of any kind. While this in the beginning worked a seeming hard- 
ship on the men, it resulted in good only, putting all on the same 
basis of diet and insuring the regiment against attempts on its 
health by alien enemies. 

It was at this time that 2nd Lieut. Stuyvesant Fish entered the 
field and was assigned to duty with Company A. This officer 
injected new blood and enthusiasm into Company A and was 
chiefly instrumental in making old Camp Winthrop, later Camp 
SnifFen, into one of the banner posts of the line. 



MARCH 103 

The telephone system of the regiment, which is explained in 
the chapter on communication, and which had for some months 
been in the process of construction under the direction of Major 
Hodges, was used for the first time on the line by Troop B men on 
March 15th. The time was not now far distant when every post 
on the line would be connected to its company post or outpost 
by a telephone instrument. One of the big dreams of the regiment 
was about to be consummated. 

On the 22nd, members of the staff and Headquarters Company 
paraded in Mt. Kisco for the benefit of the Red Cross. This was 
but one of the many parades in which the men of the First Pro- 
visional Regiment participated at one time or another to help 
Liberty Bond sales or Red Cross drives in the towns near which 
the various detachments were stationed. 

Spring was coming on apace with baseball talk in the air and 
the formation of three battalion leagues promised. One of the 
sings of spring was the comparative ease in getting replacements 
that had not cared to face the cold weather, although the regi- 
ment was, as always, face to face with the problem of indifference 
to the Aqueduct work by the men at home station. 

Capt. Otto Thiede was relieved during the latter part of the 
month from further duty with the regiment and his place as 
Inspecting Officer and Summary Court Officer of the 3rd Battalion 
was taken by Capt. Eugene Scherman. 



SECOND BATTALION RATINGS FOR MARCH 



Organization Guarding 

Company H 36 

Company F 33 

Company G 32 

Machine Gun Company. . 26 
Company E 28 



Sani- 


Appear- 




tation 


ance 


P. C. 


26 


25 


87 


24 


22 


79 


22 


22 


78 


22 


22 


68 


20 


19 


67 



APRIL 

ON the 1st of April Regimental Headquarters moved back to 
the top of Crow Hill and organized the tent camp for the 
summer. The regimental telephone switchboard was installed, 
and from Ashokan to Hillview the line was in touch with head- 
quarters. There was much to do at the camp, for winter had 
left the hill in sorry shape, but with a large gang of prisoners, 
made possible by the shifting of the Prison Camp, this work was 
carried on under the direction of Major Hodges. 

On April 6th the first of the battalion league games was played 
and Company D defeated Company A. Under orders from the 
Commanding General battalion baseball was later discontinued. 

The return of the regiment to canvas for the summer was 
celebrated by one of the headquarters' rhymesters with a few 
verses of parody on Mr. Kipling's "Back to the Army Again," 
that went like this: 



We're here in a combination 

Of cotton and O. D., mate; 
Back under the same old canvas, 

The canvas of Ninety-eight. 
Yep, up on the side of a mountain. 

Or maybe you'd call it a hill; 
But it's steeper than some church steeples 

And so slippery you can't stand still. 

Cho.: 

Back under canvas again, sergeant. 

Back under canvas again; 
Duckin' the drops from the holes in the tops 

Of the conicals. Splashed by the rain. 
Mud to our boot-tops, by golly! 

Wouldn't it give you a pain? 
List to the rap of the fly and the flap, 

We're back under canvas again. 



APRIL 105 

Regimental Headquarters was put on a heavy calisthenics 
schedule with the return of the Staff and Headquarters Company 
to open-air life. This schedule continued throughout the re- 
mainder of the service, although Colonel Rose, during the last 
part of August, introduced an entirely new set of movements 
adapted from the French and British schools, which are elsewhere 
discussed under "Athletics" in the chapter on recreation. 

On the 2nd the line was visited by Major Howard C. Smith, 
Inspector-General of the State, Major Trimble, Chief Ordnance 
Officer, and Lieut. Ficken of the Inspector-General's stajfF. Second 
Lieut. LeRoy Lamden of Company C was relieved from duty 
with the regiment on the same date. 

The Third Liberty Loan received a great deal of attention 
from the First Provisional Regiment, and on New York Guard 
day, April 20th, approximately 400 men of the units of the ist 
and 3rd Battalions paraded in Ossining under command of Lieut.- 
Colonel Burnett, while units of the 2nd Battalion paraded in 
Newburgh. The Ossining parade was the first occasion when 
members of the regiment had paraded in regimental formation, 
and the form and marching order of the men were a distinct sur- 
prise to even the officers themselves. An amulance unit com- 
manded by Capt. E. C. Waterbury, formed a part of the First 
Provisional's column. Lieut. -Colonel Burnett was supported by 
a staff consisting of the Adjutant, Captain Howland Pell, 
Capt. Eugene Scherman and Lieut. Avery E. Lord, as well as 
the non-commissioned staff and Headquarters Company. The 
1st Battalion was commanded by Major Hodges, with Lieut. 
John Towner as Adjutant, and the 3rd Battalion by Captain 
Harte, with Lieut. Weed as Adjutant. Company D was color 
company and also carried machine-guns. Colonel McAlpin, 
Grand Marshal of the parade, reviewed the troops and paid high 
tribute to the First Provisional at the conclusion of the long march. 

On April 23rd, Capt. Alfred Broadbent, Co. K, loth Infantry, 
who since the entry of the regiment into the field had been in 
command of Sector N-i, was relieved from further duty with the 
regiment, under orders from the office of the Adjutant-General. 

With lights on most of the vulnerable points on the east side 
of the Hudson, warm weather coming on, ice-orders out, and three 
replacement detachments mobilizing in New York for entry into 
the field, the Regiment closed its ninth month of service. 



MAY 



IT was during this month that the regiment was to enter the 
most critical stage of its history, but the sunshine, flowers and 
blue sky that greeted the opening days of May gave little promise 
of the storm that was to come. The early days of the month were 
featured by the release of Capt. Milton Aaronowitz, M. C, who 
had been attached to the 2nd Battalion as medical officer from 
the date of Lieut. Clinton's relief from duty. Sergt. Louis A. 
Welch, a Lambert Farm veteran of old Company B, ist Infantry, 
received his promotion to 2nd Lieutenant about the ist of the 
month and was as a result relieved from duty. Sergt. Patrick 
J. Bradley of Company M was at this time commissioned 2nd 
Lieutenant and was, through a vacancy existing in his unit, able 
to remain in the field. 

Volunteer line-stopping detachments that had been sent to the 
line of the 2nd Battalion by the units of the ist and 3rd nearly a 
month previous, were released on Wednesday, May 8th, by the 
advent of two replacement units on the line of the 2nd Battalion. 
These were 49 men of the 8th C. A. C, commanded by Capt. 
Edward C. Gibbs, with Lieut. Claude L. Girdner, and 60 enlisted 
men of the 47th Infantry commanded by Capt. Simon J. McCarty, 
with 1st Lieut. James S. Reynolds. Captain Gibbs' command 
was stationed at Olive Bridge, covering Sector N-i-A, and Captain 
McCarty's command took i-B with company post at Atwood. 

On the same date 60 men of the 13th C. A. C, under command 
of Capt. Daniel F. Young, with ist Lieut. William A. Lynch and 
2nd Lieut. William D. Buckley, took over Company M's sector. 

These three replacement movements necessitated considerable 
shifting in which the men moved were, as far as possible, placed 
under officers of their own command. The line was left stronger 
than it had been in some time, and continued the vigorous program 
of instruction and drill that Colonel Rose had outlined to bat- 
talion commanders early in the spring, but which had been 
interrupted by man shortage. 

On the nth, units of the 3rd Battalion under the command of 
Capt. Leo C. Harte, participated in the dedication of the Liberty 
Pole and Flag and the unveiling of the memorial tablet at Wash- 






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upper — A morning on Turkey Mountain. Colonel Rose, Captain 
Pell, Captain Hutton. Center — Election at Ossining headquarters (1918) ; 
Colonel Rose voting. Lower — Conference at headquarters, Croton Lake, 
in the early days. 



MAY 107 

ington's headquarters, White Plains, when Mrs. Charles S. Whit- 
man, wife of the Governor, broke out the colors as Sergt. John 
Corrie, the regiment's chief trumpeter, sounded "To the Colors." 
Col. William Lanier Washington, great-great-great grand-nephew 
of the Father of American Liberty was the guest of honor at the 
event. 

On the 15th, Comptroller L. Craig, of the City of New York, 
paid his first visit to the line in company with Colonel Rose and 
Deputy Comptroller Fenton, covering the line of the 3rd and 
1st Battalions. 

It was about this time that Capt. Charles W. Baldwin, Chap- 
lain of the 1st Infantry, and for many months volunteer Chaplain 
of the First Provisional, began his work on the line, which is 
discussed in the chapters on Morale and Religious Life of the 
regiment. 

And it was here, at this time, that the hope of federalization 
with service abroad or Mexican border service which had bloomed 
with the spring and which had flourished in the hearts of the men 
of the First Provisional Regiment, was broken by the announce- 
ment from the office of the Adjutant-General that federalization 
for the New York Guard was out of the question. 

The Adjutant-General's "absolute nonsense" characterization 
of the federalization idea did much to undermine the morale of 
the First Provisional Regiment, inasmuch as it had been the hope 
of imminent federalization which had helped to bolster up the 
regimental spirit to the monotonous routine of guard duty through- 
out the winter and the early spring. It was not until months later 
that the officers of the First Provisional learned how near the 
Guard was to National Guard status in early May, when there 
was sent to the Adjutant-Generals of all States and Territories 
an invitation to put then existing State troops on a National 
Guard basis, an invitation which the then Adjutant-General of 
the State declined. 

Knowledge on the line of the First Provisional that the Adjutant- 
General of the State had gone on record against federalization 
was marked by a big increase of federal enlistments from the 
ranks. While this was of great benefit to the Federal officers, it 
raised havoc with the line and the strength of the regiment fell 
away day by day. In one order selected at random from the 
S. O.'s issued at that time, there are four releases for Federal 
service out of six men leaving the line. 

Lieut. Fredrick L. Stone, for some time Adjutant of the 3rd 
Battalion, was relieved from duty with the regiment on May 23rd 
for Federal service, and his work, as well as that of Battalion 
8 



io8 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

Inspector, was taken up by Lieut. Avery E. Lord soon after this 
date. 

Colonel Rose had been obliged to secure leave for seven days 
about the 17th of the month, and it was in the period between the 
17th and the end of the month that his business affairs, which 
had for some time been on the verge of collapse, due to the fact 
that the regiment was demanding all his time, crashed into chaos. 
At the same time his iron constitution that had been carrying the 
weight of the regiment gave way beneath the strain. For several 
days there was a great question in the minds of those who knew 
as to whether he would ever recover, and it soon became apparent 
that only complete rest and forgetfulness of all cares and worries 
could pull him through. As a result his leave was extended and 
the affairs of the regiment were left to Lieut.-Colonel William L. 
Burnett. 

Hitherto the administration of the regiment had been little 
affected by the fact that the organization was a part of the Pro- 
visional Brigade, of which General Kemp was Commanding Officer, 
but about this time, by direction of the Commanding General, 
Lieut.-Colonel Burnett directed extensive changes to bring about 
what was known as the Brigade Battalion idea; that is to say, 
the placing of all of the troops of one brigade so far as possible 
in one battalion. As a part of this move the officers of the regi- 
ment were in many instances reassigned, so that under General 
Orders No. 41, issued May 26, the organization of the regiment 
stood as follows: 



Company A 

Capt. E. T. Van Zandt 12th Infantry 

1st Lieut. I. J. Ussiker 12th Infantry 

1st Lieut. Arthur Wynne 12th Infantry 

2nd Lieut. Stuyvesant Fish 12th Infantry 

Company B 

Capt. J. J. Roche 69th Infantry 

1st Lieut. E. M. Kirkpatrick 69th Infantry 

2nd Lieut. R. V. O' Grady 69th Infantry 

Company C 

Capt. J. W. Johnson 4th Infantry 

1st Lieut. O. D. Eaton 4th Infantry 



MAY 109 

Company D 

Capt. F. C. Keuhnle 71st Infantry 

1st Lieut. J. N. Braden 71st Infantry 

2nd Lieut. H. R. Lydecker 8th C. A. C. 

Company E 

Capt. S. J. McCarty 47th Infantry 

1st Lieut. J. S. Reynolds 47th Infantry 

1st Lieut. D. Caulfield 47th Infantry 

2nd Lieut. J. Travers 47th Infantry 

Company F 

Capt. E. M. Decker ist Infantry 

ist Lieut. S. W. Richards loth Infantry 

Company G 

Capt. Edw. C. Gibbs 8th C. A. C. 

1st Lieut. C. Higgs 8th C. A. C. 

1st Lieut. E. L. Martin 14th Infantry 

2nd Lieut. C. L. Girdner 8th C. A. C. 

Company H 

Capt. C. A. Hinman 4th Infantry 

1st Lieut. A. B. Suttle 4th Infantry 

Company I 

Capt. D. F. Young 13th C. A. C. 

1st Lieut. W. A. Lynch 13th C. A. C. 

2nd Lieut. W. D. Buckley 13th C. A. C. 

Company K 

Capt. J. H. Blume 14th Infantry 

1st Lieut. F. A. Baldwin 14th Infantry 

2nd Lieut. L. H. Gutterman 47th Infantry 

Company L 

Capt. A. H. Westcott Troop G, Sq. D, ist Cav. 

1st Lieut. G. C. Weed 3rd Field Artillery 

2nd Lieut. C. M. Servatius Troop G, Sq. D, ist Cav. 



I lo H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

Company M 

Capt. N. W. Muller 69th Infantry 

1st Lieut. J. F. Keefe 69th Infantry 

2nd Lieut. P. J. Bradley 69th Infantry 

Machine Gun Co. 

Capt. E. L. Harder loth Infantry 

1st Lieut. H. N. Smith 3rd Infantry 

2nd Lieut. R. C. Launt ist Infantry 

This entailed the transfer of 338 men among the various com- 
panies of the regiment and the release from duty under General 
Kemp's orders, effective June ist, of Capt. F. M. Van Nouhuys; 
1st Lieut. Charles B. Cleary, loth Infantry; ist Lieut. Edgar B. 
Clerk, Troop B, Squadron D; ist Lieut. Cornelieus Vandecarr, 
Co. F, loth Infantry; 2nd Lieut. Harry J. Kerr Co. M, loth 
Infantry. Captain Snowden was assigned as Inspecting Officer 
and Summary Court Officer of the 2nd Battalion. By General 
Kemp's order Capt. Eugene Scherman was made supply officer 
of the 2nd Battalion, and Lieut. Miller, who had been the 2nd 
Battalion supply officer since the entry of the regiment into the 
field, was sent to Millwood to assist Captain De Garmo. Under 
brigade orders, Major E. J. Wilson established quarters at the 
supply depot at Millwood, to be there at least four days a week, 
and from that time until the return of Colonel Rose the Supply 
Company was to all intents and purposes under direct brigade 
control. 

May 30th being Memorial Day, ceremonies were held on the 
parade ground at Regimental Headquarters at 8045 a.m., with 
Captain Baldwin offering prayer. The names, of the following 
men who had up to that time died in the service of the regiment 
were read in orders by the Regimental Adjutant: 

"Private Thomas A. Stokes, Co. A, 69th Infantry, at- 
tached to Provisional Co. B, who died January 2nd, 
19 1 8, as a result of an accidental shooting at the Prison 
Camp, Peekskill, N. Y., on the evening of January ist." 

"Private Aloysius Kelly, Co. B, 69th Infantry, attached 
to Provisional Co. M, who died on March 9th, 1918, as 
a result of an accident on the New York Central tracks 
near Chappaqua." 



MAY III 

"Cook Martin Ryan, Co. E, 14th Infantry, attached to 
Provisional Co. K, who died May i6th, 19 18, as a result 
of Bright's disease contracted in line of duty with this 
regiment." 

In the afternoon the Headquarters Company, and detachments 
from Companies A, I, M, and D, forming a provisional battalion 
commanded by Major Hodges, participated in a parade for the 
dedication of the Mt. Kisco service flag of 135 stars. Lieut. - 
Colonel Burnett spoke at the dedication. Immediately after the 
parade staff ofliicers left for the Sleepy Hollow Club, where they 
participated with detachments from Companies M and K in the 
Fete de Mai given by the Sleepy Hollow Country Club for the 
benefit of the Red Cross. It was a full day for the First Provisional 
and concluded one of the most momentous months in the regi- 
ment's history. With the Commanding Officer of the regiment 
prostrated by illness, and the policies of the regiment in a state 
of transformation, the outlook was not particularly bright, and 
men were falling away from the ranks in huge blocks for Federal 
service. 



JUNE 

rHE WATCHDOG, which, as the regimental newspaper, had 
been pubHshed for the men of the regiment since the previous 
September, was, by direction of the Commanding General, sus- 
pended on June 7th, having appeared for 37 issues. On the same 
day, Capt. E. L. Harder, commanding Sector N-6, was relieved 
from further duty with the First Provisional Regiment. 

Replacement detachments continued to enter the field, but it 
was an almost impossible matter to keep the regiment to strength, 
as the tables for the summer months show. Capt. Chauncey A. 
Pierce and Lieut. William H. Smith of the 23rd Infantry, with 60 
enlisted men, took over the Machine Gun Company sector and 
the men on it were transferred so as to be with their commanding 
officers from their home organizations as far as possible. Re- 
placement troops did not come up to the figures prescribed by the 
Adjutant-General's office in its orders and there was a continual 
thinness of the line. On June 13th the regiment lost another good 
officer in the release of Lieut. Harvey N. Smith of the 3rd In- 
fantry, who entered Federal service. Lieut. John H. Travers, 
47th Infantry, was relieved from duty with the regiment on 
the 15th. 

About the middle of June headquarters established definite 
relations with the Sheriff's Emergency Force of Westchester 
County through co-operation in the matter of enemy alien signal 
lights, a subject which is discussed in the chapter on ''The Trail 
of the Octopus." Capt. Jessup of the Emergency Force became a 
frequent visitor at headquarters and various moves described 
hereafter were made to co-operate with the sheriff's force in locat- 
ing enemy aliens. 

The prisoners who had been at headquarters were moved to the 
Supply Department and were during the early summer engaged 
in clean-up work and the erection of a garage at Millwood. Dur- 
ing the latter part of June the regiment furnished prisoners and 
guards for the hay harvest at Camp Whitman, an operation that 
took over 30 days, but which resulted in a big harvest of hay for 
the State at small expense. 

Lieut. Therkildsen, who had been attached to headquarters 



JUNE 113 

for some time, was, on the 26th, detached therefrom and directed 
to report to Company G at Gardiner, serving first with Captain 
Gibbs, later with Captain Johnson, and finally with Captain 
Johnson at Cold Springs until the end of the unit's service in the 
field. 

On the 28th the Commanding Officer of the 2nd Battalion was 
directed, upon the recommendation of the Department of Water 
Supply, Gas & Electricity, to withdraw guards from the Walkill 
Blow-off, with the exception of the blow-ofF gate-house. 

The Supply Department was occasioning the regiment a great 
deal of anxiety at this time, and as June drew to a close, conditions 
became more acute at Millwood, where Captain De Garmo mani- 
festly was being overworked. Grave doubts were entertained 
by rnost of the officers on the line at this time as to whether 
Colonel Rose would ever return to take command of the regiment. 
The entire organization was in a state of uneasiness, with all 
of the minor troubles magnified by the constant shortage of 
man-power, for which the Commanding General seemed to find 
no solution. 

SECOND battalion's RATINGS 

Sani- J p pear- 
Organization Guarding tation ance P. C. 

Company F 37 25 25 87 

Company H 35 26 25 86 

Company G 34 25 23 82 

Company E 30 23 20 72 

Machine Gun Company. . 29 20 23 72 



JULY 

THE Commanding General had indicated a desire that the regi- 
ment make as little use as possible of the auxiliary motor 
corps, but with July 3, 5, and 6 designated as rifle practice dates for 
the First Provisional, it became apparent that the transportation 
of the men from the various posts on the line to the range could 
only be accomplished by auxiliary service, and Lieut. Turner of 
Chappaqua, with Captain Rogers of Bronxville and Captain Rup- 
precht of Greenwich, were asked to take charge of transporting 
the men who were to shoot on these days. It was a big under- 
taking, but was well done by the women who were responsible 
for the procuration of the necessary transportation. 

Considering their lack of opportunity for practice in sighting 
and firing, the men of the regiment did very well indeed at the 
range and the entire schedule was run off without incident or 
accident. Lieut. Horgan was assigned as medical officer on the 
range for July 3rd, and Capt. E. C. Waterbury for the 5th and 
6th. Lieutenant Weed was range officer. 

On the 4th, the Headquarters Staff, non-commissioned staff, 
Headquarters Company, and a provisional battalion comprised 
of detachments from Companies A, I, M and D, marched in Mt. 
Kisco as a part of a big civilian parade which was typical of the 
war days of the summer of 1918. Lieut. -Colonel Burnett was 
Grand Marshal of the parade, with the Regimental Adjutant act- 
ing as Adjutant-General. Major W. L. Hodges commanded the 
provisional battalion, with Lieut. John Towner as Adjutant. The 
parade contained five divisions in which practically every home 
unit of the country's great war program was represented, includ- 
ing a detachment of farmerettes from Bedford, the W. S. S. forces 
of the Boy Scouts and Campfire Girls, the Home Defense com- 
panies of near-by villages, and the dehydrating organization com- 
posed of women, as well as the usual civic organizations. Follow- 
ing the parade a program of speaking was featured by an address 
from Lieut. -Colonel Burnett on the history and work of the First 
Provisional Regiment. 

Captain Waterbury had, since the release of Captain Aaron- 
nowitz, been covering a portion of the 2nd Battalion in addition 



JULY IIS 

to the 1st, but with the arrival of Capt. John Kenny, M. C, at- 
tached to the 1 2th Infantry, on July 8th, returned to headquarters. 
On the same date the regiment lost Capt. John H. Blume, who, as 
commanding officer of Provisional Company K, had been one 
of the efficiency men of the organization. Lieut. Stuyvesant Fish 
of Company A was also relieved from duty on the 8th, with the 
thanks of the Commanding Officer for a full and complete service. 
Lieut. W. F. Smith of the Provisional Machine Gun Company 
was relieved from duty July nth. Capt. William E. White, 14th 
Infantry, took command of Company K. 

Pyramidal tentage was being issued throughout the regiment 
during this period in limited quantities to replace the battered old 
white conicals that the men of the line had slept under since the 
first days in the field. The new pyramidals, slightly undersize, 
but well made, and wind-proof as well as rain-proof, were given a 
hearty greeting all along the line. 

It was on the nth when the officers of the ist and 3rd Bat- 
talions assembled at headquarters to meet the Commanding Gen- 
eral and Major Wilson, the Brigade Quartermaster, on the sub- 
ject of vouchers. Viewed from the perspective that time gives, 
there is no doubt that this nth day of July, 1918, marked the 
lowest ebb of the regiment. The line, thin from the lack of re- 
placements, was sagging, and officers and men felt it. Within the 
week there had gone from Ashokan to Hillview the whisper that 
Colonel Rose would not return and that he was to be succeeded 
in command by an officer not of the regiment. And in the faces 
of the officers who listened to the Commanding General and the 
Brigade Quartermaster speak on the subject of vouchers that 
afternoon there was little response, no enthusiasm, no snap or 
vigor so characteristic of officers' meetings in the First Provisional. 
The contrast to those other meetings a year gone, when Colonel 
Rose had fired the officers and men of the line with the spirit of 
the big work, was pathetic. 

The meeting dragged through to a close. And then, at the end 
of it, the Lieut.-Colonel spoke. "I know you will be happy to 
learn," he said, "that our Commanding Officer telephoned me 
to-day that he would be back with us Sunday, to stay." 

What that message meant to those weary officers of staff and 
line was told by the rattle of hand-clapping that lasted for some 
time. The meeting adjourned. 

Late that afternoon a terrific thunderstorm whipped West- 
chester County, clearing the air in the same manner that the 
announcement of the earlier afternoon had cleared the regimental 
atmosphere. And then the sun went down to the mountains in 



ii6 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

the west under a gorgeous rainbow that gave good omen for the 
days that were to come. Before midnight the entire regiment 
knew that its Colonel was coming back. 

There followed busy days at headquarters when a detail of men 
and officers worked night and day to prepare the Commanding 
Officer's quarters for his arrival. The interior of his sleeping- 
shack was finished in white, his office in cream with slate-blue 
trim, and the panels of the walls filled with the sector maps of the 
line. The regiment's first flag, a piece of the original Aqueduct 
of the City of New York, and framed originals of Watchdog car- 
toons, completed the decoration of the walls, while oiled floors, 
linoleum and screens finished the comfort and hominess of the 
place. 

And at 4.30 o'clock, on Sunday afternoon, July 14th, after more 
than a month of absence and sickness, the Commanding Officer 
stepped from his automobile on Headquarters Hill, to be welcomed 
by his officers in a way that told better than anything else possibly 
could how glad they were to have him back. 

The Headquarters Company turned out for the occasion and 
was greeted by Colonel Rose, who immediately afterward called 
the officers into conference in the mess hall, which lasted until 
6.45 o'clock. Each officer gave the news of the line from his own 
sector or department, together with suggestions for remedying 
undesirable conditions, and when the first call for Retreat 
sounded. Colonel Rose had in his mind the picture of the line and 
the regiment as it stood after his month's separation from it. 

On the following day. Captain McCarty, Lieut. Caulfield and 
Lieut. Reynolds, with the detachment of the 47th Infantry, were 
moved to Sectors S-6 and -7, becoming Company M, and Capt. 
Nicholas Muller, with Lieut. Keefe and Lieut. Bradley and the 
men of the 69th, went to N-i, becoming Company E. Captain 
Muller established his headquarters at Olive Bridge. This move- 
ment had been previously directed by General Kemp. 

Some idea of the fitness of the men of Captain Mullet's com- 
mand, both in appearance and marching form, may be gained from 
the fact that as the company moved along 42nd Street on the way 
across New York City to the ferries, they were given an enthusi- 
astic reception by persons in the streets, who believed them to 
be troops en route to embarkation point for service overseas. 
Cheers and shouts of, "Eat 'em alive," *'Go to it," "Give 'em 
hell," and so on, followed the men all along the line of their march. 

On the 1 8th, Capt. John W. Johnson, with Lieut. Eaton and 
the 85 men of Provisional Company C moved to Company K's 
sector, and Captain White, with Lieut. Baldwin and jS men of 



JULY 117 

Company H, went to the C sector. This was made necessary as a 
result of the previous shift of troops which had left the lower and 
most strategically important portion of the line in weakened con- 
dition. Lieut. Gutterman, who was in charge of the Camp Whit- 
man hay detail, remained at the State camp, although transferred 
to the books of Provisional Company C. During the movement 
the lines were covered adequately. 

The Aqueduct Guard Citizens' Committee, with Hon. Alton B. 
Parker as chairman, was formed at a meeting of leading citizens 
of Westchester, Putnam, Orange, Dutchess, and Ulster Counties 
at the home of Stuyvesant Fish, at Garrison, on the 20th. The 
history of this committee and its work on the Aqueduct is des- 
cribed in the chapter on the recreation of the regiment. 

First Lieut. E. L. Martin was relieved from further duty with 
the regiment on the 20th and at that time the authority for the 
Camp Whitman hay detail was extended to include the 31st. 

The Adjutant-General of the State of New York paid his first 
and only visit to the line of the First Provisional Regiment on 
July 24th, in company with Brigadier-General F. DeForest Kemp 
and Major Wilson. The party was escorted from Cold Springs 
to Regimental Headquarters, where a conference of the officers of 
the 1st Infantry was in progress. The Adjutant-General made 
an address to the officers of the ist Infantry on the work of the 
New York Guard. 

The 1st Infantry conference kept headquarters busy for two 
days, with an instruction trip on the line featuring the first day's 
events. 

On the 24th, officers of the ist and 3rd battalions were called 
into conference at Regimental Headquarters as a part of Colonel 
Rose's program for the tightening of the line. The task of prac- 
tically rehabilitating the regiment lay before him on his return 
to duty, and the conference of the 24th marked the first visible 
move in that direction, although several preliminary moves had 
been made quietly. 

It was on the 25th that the regiment lost its dental surgeon 
with the induction of ist Lieut. Edgar V. Friend into the Federal 
service. Lieut. Friend had served since the previous winter and 
his services had done much toward keeping the health and diges- 
tion of the men of the regiment up to normal. During his service, 
which is discussed in more detail in the chapter on the health of 
the regiment, he moved along the line from post to post, setting 
up his portable ofl&ce and bringing relief to sufferers from Ashokan 
to Hillview. 

First Lieut. Arthur Wynne, 12th Infantry, who entered the field 



ii8 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

with the regiment in the previous year and who, as a sub-sector 
commander, a contributor to The Watchdog, and a barracks- 
builder, had become well known and well liked, was relieved from 
duty on the 27th, returning to his journalistic work in New York. 
On the 29th, as a part of the general plan of tightening of dis- 
cipline and work for the entire regiment, general orders issued 
from headquarters for the reading of at least one article of the 
Articles of War, as designated in A. W. no, at Retreat at all posts 
and outposts. Where no Retreat was held, these articles were 
read at the time of mounting guard, and company commanders 
were instructed to explain them fully. 



AUGUST 

THE anniversary month of the regiment's year in service was 
ushered in by a wave of hot weather, general tightening along 
the entire line, and the issuance of G. O. 52, which prescribed the 
posting of General and Special Orders of sentinels in all sentry 
telephone-boxes. 

On the 2nd, Major Charles A. Clinton, 9th C. A. C, who had 
served as a lieutenant on the line of the First Provisional during 
the previous summer, was assigned to duty as acting Chief Medical 
Officer during the absence of Major Townsend. Capt. Simon J. 
McCarty was relieved from duty with the regiment on the 3rd, 
and the Sector S-6 and -7 was taken over by Lieut. Reynolds. 

The Commanding Officer, after investigating various property 
accounts in the regiment, called a meeting of the officers of the 
1st and 3rd Battalions at headquarters on the 5th, at whch the 
matter of property and supplies was thoroughly discussed. As a 
result of it. Captain Roche was sent with a detail of non-commis- 
sioned clerks to Millwood to check the property accounts of the 
various sector commanders. 

On the 7th, Capt. Reginald Vandewater, 47th Infantry, with 
38 enlisted men, was brought onto the line, and Captain Vande- 
water was placed in command of Company M, covering Sectors 
S-6 and -7. 

For some weeks Captain De Garmo had been working under an 
ever-increasing strain to keep the affairs of the Supply Company 
above water, and on the 9th of August a combined sunstroke and 
nervous breakdown dropped him suddenly from the work of the 
regiment. Capt. Leo C. Harte was immediately relieved from 
duty as commanding officer of the 3rd Battalion and placed on 
duty at Millwood, acting as Supply Officer in the absence of 
Captain De Garmo. Captain Kuehnle was placed in command 
of the 3rd Battalion. 

On the loth. Major W. L. Hodges, commanding the ist Bat- 
talion, was relieved from further duty with the regiment, with the 
thanks of the Commanding Officer, having at that time finished 
one year of service with the regiment. The departure of Major 
Hodges was an occasion of sincere regret at headquarters. His 



120 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

part in the life and upbuilding of the regiment had been a large 
one and his work in construction of barracks, the erection of the 
telephone and lighting systems, as well as his service as a battalion 
commander, had been of extreme value to the regiment. Capt. 
John J. Roche, commanding Company B, was placed in command 
of the battalion. 

The anniversary of the regiment's entry into the field was 
marked by the pardoning of Private Peter Gallagher, Battery B, 
1st Field Artillery, who had, on Oct. 13th of the previous year, 
shot and killed a 14-year-old boy, Thomas Bennett, of Yonkers, 
while on duty at Dunwoodie. Gallagher had been sentenced to 
fourteen months at hard labor, with Regimental Headquarters 
named as the place of his confinement. During the months that 
elapsed between the commission of the act and the anniversary 
of the regiment's entry into the field, the boy passed through a 
metamorphosis that made him one of the best and best-liked of 
the men at headquarters. As a result of his good conduct. Colonel 
Rose directed that inquiry be made from the members of the 
General Court that had passed on the case as to their disposition 
in the matter of pardon, and there was unanimous consent. The 
following correspondence tells the story of the remainder of the 
case: 

Headquarters 
First Provisional Regiment 
New York Guard 

Croton Lake, N. Y., August 2, 1918. 

File No. 18-22. 

From: Commanding Officer ist Provisional Regiment. 

To: His Excellency, Charles S. Whitman, Comman- 

der-in-Chief of the Forces of the State, Albany, 
N. Y. (Through Military Channels.) 

Subject: Pardon of Private Peter Gallagher. 

1. On August loth, 1918, the First Provisional Regiment 
will have completed a year of service in the field, and, so 
far as it is known by this headquarters has completed the 
longest period of State Field Service of any regiment in the 
history of New York State. 

2. It is the belief of the Commanding Officer that this 
event should be marked in some fitting manner, and the 
Commanding Officer of the First Provisional Regiment re- 
quests that, in recognition of the services performed by this 
regiment during the year that has passed, and upon the basis 
of representations made in the communication herewith 



AUGUST 121 

attached, a pardon be granted by the Commander-in-Chief 
of the State Forces to Private Peter Gallagher, Battery B, 
1st F. A., New York Guard, now serving sentence at the 
post of the First Provisional Regiment under G. O. 59, A. 
G. O., 1917. 

3. Private Gallagher was the first general prisoner of 
this regiment, having been found guilty by a general court- 
martial convened under S. O. 259, A. G. O., 1917. His 
offense was the accidental shooting of Thomas Bennett, 
who was loitering near his sentry post at the north door 
of the overflow chamber at Dunwoodie, on Monday, Octo- 
ber 8th, 1917. 

4. To the personal knowledge of the Commanding Officer 
of this regiment, prisoner Gallagher is now an entirely dif- 
ferent person from the sullen, ungovernable boy who came 
to this headquarters on the night of the shooting as a 
prisoner. 

5. It is the belief of the Commanding Officer of this 
regiment that the associations and environment in which 
prisoner Gallagher has lived for nearly a year, have brought 
out much of the best that is in him, and that, with the 
pardon of the Commander-in-Chief, there can be returned 
to the ranks of the New York Guard in service with the 
First Provisional Regiment in the field, a loyal soldier who 
will one day be a worthy citizen of this State. 

John B. Rose, 
Colonel, ist Infantry, N. Y. G. 
Commanding. 

1ST IND. 

State of New York, A. G. O., Albany, N. Y., August 
9th, 1918 — To Commanding Officer, ist Infantry, N. Y. 
G. Thru the channels. Pardon requested forwarded. 

C. H. Sherrill, 

The Adjutant-General. 

2312 2ND IND. 

Hdqrs. Prov. Brigade, August loth, 191 8: To the 
Commanding Officer, ist Prov. Regt. Forwarding pardon. 

F. De F. Kemp, 

Brigadier-General. 
Daniel F. Nial, 

Major, Adjutant-General. 



122 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

August 2nd, 1918. 

From: President of the General Court-martial convened 
under S. O. No. 259, A. G. O. 

To: The Adjutant-General, State of New York, Albany, 

N. Y. 

I. By unanimous consent of the court convened under 
S. O. 259, A. G. O., 1917, pardon is asked for Private 
Peter Gallagher, Battery B, ist Field Artillery, whose 
sentence was promulgated in G. O. 59, A. G. O., 1917. 
William L. Burnett, 

Major 1st Infantry, N. Y. G. 

Acting Lieut.-Col., First Provisional Regt. 

President of the Court. 

The pardon came on the loth, reading as follows: 

State of New York 

Executive Chamber 

Albany 

August 10, 1918. 

For good cause shown and upon the recommendation of 
the Commanding Officer, First Provisional Regiment, N. Y. 
G., approved by the Commanding General, Provisional 
Brigade, N. Y. G., and the Commanding General, Division, 
N. Y. G., Private Peter Gallagher, Battery B, ist Field 
Artillery, N. Y. G., is hereby granted this pardon for of- 
fenses committed as set forth in General Orders No. 59, 
A. G. O., 1917. The unexecuted portion of the sentence of 
the General Court-martial in this case as promulgated and 
approved in said General Order, is hereby remitted and the 
said Peter Gallagher is hereby fully restored to his former 
position as a member of the New York Guard. 

Charles S. Whitman, 
Governor. 

At Retreat on the evening of the loth, while the staff and 
Headquarters Company stood at attention, Colonel Rose caused 
Gallagher to be brought from the guard-house to the parade 
ground and spoke briefly to him of the pardon that had come 
from the Governor. The correspondence, together with the par- 
don, were read to the command, a rifle placed in Gallagher's 



AUGUST 123 

hands, and he was given a place in the ranks of the Headquarters 
Company. The occasion was an impressive one and a character- 
istic observation of the First Provisional's anniversary. 

Looking back over the year of occupation by the First Pro- 
visional Regiment, even the most casual person would have been 
struck on this, its anniversary, by the terrific struggle for existence 
that had accompanied every day and almost every hour of the 
regiment's history. It had broken time records for a State regi- 
ment in State service, and all terrain records in the amount of 
territory continuously occupied. Fired in its first days by the 
spirit of its Commanding Officer, the organization had faced and 
overcome all obstacles, even though obliged to combat tor the 
things to which, as an organization in the field, it was entitled, 
and had come through to the end of its first year, now with renewed 
hope and promise of even better work for the future. The star 
of federalization burned low and on the horizon another star — 
a scarlet one — appeared, that brought despair to the hearts of the 
men of the regiment, who prayed with each new tour of guard 
duty on the serpentine line of the cut and cover for duty overseas. 
The Federal Government had offered National Guard status to 
all State troops and New York State had refused. From the 
Federal Government had issued an order requiring all New York 
State troops to wear distinctive insignia, and G. O. 38 had pre- 
scribed a scarlet star two inches in diameter to be worn on the 
sleeve of all coats, blouses and shirts of enlisted men, and together 
with dark-blue braid, which was to replace the brown braid on 
officers' sleeves. 

Although the scarlet stars were never actually issued, they were 
purchased in great quantities, and the moral effect of the impending 
execution of the order was disastrous on the Aqueduct. Applica- 
tions for immediate Federal service were made right and left by 
officers and men in the first flush of resentment against a condition 
that seemed to penalize the sacrifices and privations that the 
First Provisional had made. A crude doggerel that ran the length 
of the line during the scarlet-star scare perhaps expressed the 
feeling of the enlisted men better than anything else: 



Fd rather be a dog in the old back yard 

Than to wear that damn star in the New York Guard," 



was the way it ran. It was characteristic of the First Provisional 
that its humor, as usual, saved the situation. In devising smart 
lines concerning the wearing of the scarlet star, the men spent 
9 



124 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

half their steam. Some of those lines were very good — but not 
for publication. 

Remington rifles of the Russian model were delivered along 
the line throughout the month of August, and the ancient Spring- 
fields and the Krags that had formed the bulk of armament for 
the First Provisional from its entrance into the field were picked 
up and turned in to the State Arsenal. 

The month closed with the relief from duty of ist Lieut. James 
Keefe, of the 69th Infantry, who had been with Company M 
and Company E since the entry of Captain Mullet's unit into the 
field. Captain Harte was relieved from duty as acting Supply 
Oificer of the regiment and detailed to special duty with the 2nd 
Battalion. 

The closing days of August also witnessed the reunion of the 
ranking veterans of the First Provisional Regiment, with the 
transfer of Chief-Trumpeter John Corrie to Regimental Head- 
quarters, where Sergt. Angus J. Thompson, veteran drummer, 
had been stationed since the previous spring, when the two had 
been separated. Both had entered the field with Captain Thomp- 
son's 8th Coast command, and had played together until the 
dissolution of their unit. But Corrie's golden-throated bugle and 
Thompson's rattling drum lifted their voices together again at 
Regimental Headquarters on the last of August and were not 
separated again until the regiment was finally disbanded. 

The "Boy Musicians" of the First Provisional probably formed 
the best field music combination in the State. Entering the field 
on Oct. 5th with Captain Thompson's command, Sergeants 
Corrie and Thompson first drew the attention of staff officers 
when a portion of Captain Thompson's men were brought into 
Regimental Headquarters for training purposes in December, 
1917. It was there that the notes of Corrie's bugle and the 
spirited staccato of Thompson's drum made an impression, and 
as soon as opportunity offered Thompson was brought in to head- 
quarters from Scribner's Farm and made Headquarters Mess 
Sergeant. In the meantime, Corrie had been attached to the 
3rd Battalion headquarters at Valhalla, but as soon as Captain 
Harte left Corrie was also brought to headquarters and the 
famous pair was reunited, not to be parted again. 

Sergt. John Corrie, who in private life resides at 304 89th 
Street, Brooklyn, N. Y., enlisted Sept. 4th, 1879, ^^ musician of 
Company H, 17th Infantry, and while serving with that command 
participated in Indian fighting, was a member of the detachment 
that captured Sitting Bull and 325 other chiefs and warriors, and 
conveyed them from Standing Rock to Fort Randall. Corrie 



AUGUST 125 

was one of the two men who jumped on Sitting Bull and prevented 
his escape one night when the murderer of Custer knocked a 
guard's gun down and made a dash from the camp. Discharged 
in Sept., 1884, he re-enlisted on the 24th in Battery I, 5th U. S. 
Artillery, and as a member of Battery M served with the guard 
of honor at Grant's tomb in the winter of 1885-6, sounding 
service calls there. 

In 1886 he won the Atlantic Division shooting medal at Fort 
Niagara, and after serving with the Platte and Division of Mis- 
souri rifle teams, became distinguished marksman, U. S. A., in 
1889, making the highest known distance score of the U. S. Army. 
In 1906, while a member of Co. D, 2nd Infantry, Connecticut 
National Guard, his rifle team won a match open to teams from 
all States, "The Company Team Match." 

Enlisting in Co. B, 12th Infantry, in 1890, he was ist sergeant, 
musician and ordnance sergeant with the company for fourteen 
years, serving at the Buff"alo strike of '91 and the Brooklyn strike 
in '93. He won the Governor's cup as an individual award four 
times as the best shot in the State. In '91 he was a member of 
the State rifle team. 

Sergt. Angus Thompson, who lives at 69 West 105th Street, 
New York, enlisted in Company A, 12th Infantry, February 
II, 1884, and served in the Buffalo and Brooklyn strikes. He 
enlisted for the Spanish War in May, 1898, served with the 12th 
New York Volunteers, and was discharged in Georgia, Nov. 29, 
1898. He holds 10, 15, 20 and 25-year service medals. 

As musicians at headquarters, these two attracted a great deal 
of attention from visitors. Corrie's First Call, the combined 
Reveille March, and Taps were among the most distinctive of 
the calls that they played together or singly, and the long last 
notes of the Taps that Corrie played were wonderful indeed. As 
instructors both men had served so long that they knew all of 
the technique of field music, and they raised the general standard 
of field music throughout the regiment by their schools and their 
individual instructions, both at practice for service calls and 
ceremonies. Either would become wildly impatient with a be- 
ginner who spoiled a ceremony by some untoward movement or 
note, and this resulted in some side-splitting incidents at guard 
mount and evening parade. 

It was inevitable that they should have diff'erences of their 
own. Sergeant Thompson's fatherly care of his snare-drum 
brought one of these about on a thick, foggy morning so char- 
acteristic of the Croton Lake headquarters camp. 

Colonel Rose missed the noisy flutterings of Sergeant Thomp- 



126 



H-A-L-TT !— WHA-ZAA ? 



son's drum at First Call, and had gone to the window of his 
sleeping quarters to find out about it, when he heard the voices 
of the chief trumpeter and the drummer raised in disagreement 
back in the non-commissioned officers' row. 

Sergeant Corrie wanted Sergeant Thompson to bring out his 
drum for the morning calls, and Sergeant Thompson held forth 
that it was too moist a morning to risk the precious skin drum- 
head. One thing led to another, and finally it got down to a 
question of technique touching on and appertaining to the cere- 
monies of the previous evening. Corrie became impatient, and, 
as he turned away to play Reveille March, he of the 39 years' 
service remarked to the drummer of 34 years': 

'' By the time you've been in the service as long as I have you'll 
know something about the military game." 



AUGUST RATINGS, 2ND BATTALION 



Organization Guarding 

Company H 35 

Company F 36 

Company E 30 

Company G 29 

Machine Gun Co 30 



Sani- 
tation 

25 

23 
24 

22 
20 



Appear- 



ance 
22 
20 
20 

19 
20 



82 
79 
74 
70 
70 



SEPTEMBER 

WITH a redistribution of troops totaling 640 men a huge total 
of troop movement mileage in 12 hours, the First Provisional 
Regiment cut a new notch in its record-stick on the ist of Septem- 
ber, when Captain Gibbs' men moved to Company C's sector, 
Captain Johnson's men moved to Company G's sector, Captain 
White's organization dropped from C to K, Pierce's company 
from N-6 to L, and the Machine Gun Company of the ist Infantry 
marched from Newburgh to N-6, taking over, with 52 enlisted 
men under Capt. Oswald J. Cathcart, ist Lieut. Graham Witts- 
chief, and 2nd Lieut. Bryant B. Odell, son of the former Governor. 
Lieut. Launt was transferred to Provisional Company F. 

Depite the fact that there were but five trucks available in the 
entire regiment for the transportation of the vast amount of 
baggage involved in this troop movement, and that no authority 
could be obtained to secure more, the entire aflPair, with the co- 
operation of the New York Central officials, went off like clock- 
work and on time to the minute. As in the case of other troop 
movements, much of the success was due to the close and hearty 
co-operation of Mr. Wallie Wright of the New York Central's 
Passenger Traffic Department. Mr. Wright, it should be noted 
at this point, proved to be one of the best transportation friends 
the regiment ever had, and his services were invaluable in this 
and other troop movements. 

This shift, which had long been contemplated by General Kemp, 
and which was made at his order, was a part and portion of the 
proposed "Brigade Battalion" plan which constantly made itself 
apparent in the life and workings of the regiment at this time. 
In the United States Guard, a plan of separate battalions reporting 
direct to brigade or division headquarters had been tried, with the 
elimination of regimental headquarters, and it was the desire 
of the Adjutant-General to try this plan with the First Provisional 
Regiment for a time at least. At one time orders were ready to 
issue from the Adjutant-General's Office effecting this change, 
but were halted when Governor Whitman disapproved of them. 

Briefly, the plan was to place all units of the First Brigade, 
as far as possible, in the ist Battalion; all units of the 2nd Brigade 



128 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

in the 3rd Battalion, and all up-State units in the 2nd Battalion, 
thus segregating interests and organization. Colonel Rose op- 
posed the plan from the beginning, with full knowledge of what 
the adoption of it would mean to the regiment as an efficient 
guard force imbued with a single idea and working under a single 
head to a definite aim. The plan of brigade battalions was not, 
however, definitely dropped until after the resignation of the 
Adjutant-General, and the occupancy of the office by Lieut. - 
Colonel Edward J. Westcott, shortly after the middle of the month. 
It may be noted in this connection that the U. S. Guard did not 
find the battalion administrative idea fully successful. 

The movement described above brought into the field for the 
first time detachments from Companies A, D, E, F, G, H and K 
of the 1st Infantry, in addition to those from the Machine Gun 
Company. The First Provisional, long denied the assistance of 
the organization commanded at home station by Colonel Rose, 
was in this way able to bring its line to near strength at this time. 
All of the 1st men went to the line of the 2nd Battalion, 9 from 
A, 6 from D, 10 from E, 18 from F, 19 from G, 10 from H 
and 27 from K, together with some replacements from I of the 
1st for Captain Decker's command at New Paltz. 

In the meantime, arrangements had been made with Col. 
Edward E. Powell of the 4th Infantry, the warmest friend of the 
regiment at home station, to bring into the field 128 men. Captain 
Cathcart's command was relieved in entirety on the 4th of the 
month, the sector was taken over by Lieut. Stewart Richards, 
with 52 of Captain Johnson's men from Company G, and men 
from the 4th Infantry filled up the gaps in Captain Johnson's line, 
as well as reinforcing Captain Hinman at the Peak. 

On the 4th there also took place the reorganization of the 
Supply Company, Colonel Rose having finally brought about a 
condition toward which he had been moving ever since his return 
to duty with the regiment, when the Supply Company was found 
to be at its lowest ebb. S. O. 182, issued on Sept. 4th, tells the 
story: 

Headquarters 

First Provisional Regiment 

New York Guard 

Croton Lake, N. Y. 
Special Order September 4th, 1918. 

No. 182 
The following reorganization of the Supply Company 
is ordered by this Headquarters effective this date: 



SEPTEMBER 129 

Reorganization 

Capt. L. B. De Garmo (Supervision only). 
Capt. A. Westcott (Administration). 
Lt. G. C. Weed (Construction, Repairs, Distribution). 
Lt. E. Miller (Motor-trucks and Delivery). 
Lt. C. C. Servatius (Prison Detachment, Prison Guard 
and Prisoners). 

1 1st Class Quartermaster-Sergeant, George Pauli (ist 

Sergeant Supply Company). 
6 1st Class Quartermaster-Sergeants (truck drivers, 4 on 
east side of river and 2 on west side). 

2 1st Class Quartermaster-Sergeants, G. Scheide and H. 

Kingsland (chauffeurs). 
I 1st Class Quartermaster-Sergeant, Chas. Fricke (Chief 

Clerk). 
I 1st Class Quartermaster-Sergeant, Harry Gardiner (In 

charge of store tent). 

1 1st Class Quartermaster-Sergeant, Louis E. Rothstein 

(In charge of subsistence stores). 

2 1st Class Quartermaster-Sergeants (Stenographers). 
4 Quartermaster-Sergeants (Clerks). 

2 Corporals (Guards). 

15 Privates (Camp Work and Prison Guard). 

1 Cook. 

3 Quartermaster-Sergeants (Mechanics and Stablemen). 

2 Sergeants (Guard). 
I Mess Sergeant. 

Incoming Department 

In order to separate the work of the departments there 
will be established at once what is known as the Incoming 
Department (Requisitions, Ration Returns, Subsistence 
Records). 

Issue Department 

Property of all classes issued. 

Office hours of all departments from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., 
posting, 4 P.M. to 5 P.M. Office closed, 5 p.m. 
Subsistence segregated as to kinds. 
Quartermaster and Ordnance. 



I30 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

Stock-book, credit and debit (daily inventory). 
Requisitions open file (closed when completed). 

The administration of the affairs of the Supply Company 
will be carried on the same as for the Companies on the line. 
The following records will be kept for the Supply Company. 

Morning Reports plus and minus, Morning Sick Report, 
Duty Roster, Guard Report (Prison Guard and Prison 
Detachment), Morning Report Prison Detachment, City 
Log Book, Subsistence Record, Ration Return Form 223, 
Pay Roll, Daily Inventory, Card Index Accounts, Ledger 
Account, Abstract of Purchase, Abstract of Issue, Post 
Property Account, Q. M., Ordnance, Medical, Telephone 
& Tel. Record. 

The Supply Officer will adopt such regulations as are 
applicable to the handling of the men of the Supply Com- 
p2Lny as to leaves of absence, passes, furloughs, and men 
will be granted such hours off duty in turn as is consistent 
with their work. 

The Supply Officer will make the assignments for the 
non-commissioned staff, and the sergeants will be detailed 
for duty in the departments where they can be of the maxi- 
mum service. 

Capt. Eugene Scherman, Supply Officer 2nd Battalion, 
will continue in charge of 2nd Battalion supplies. 

In order that the exact condition and amount of property 
on hand in the entire regiment can be determined, a careful 
and complete inventory will be made at once, under the 
supervision of the officers, as follows: 

Major E. J. Wilson, Brigade Quartermaster, has agreed 
to supervise the inventory and physical count of all prop- 
erty on hand at Supply Headquarters, Peekskill, N. Y. 

Capt. G. B. Snowden, and Sergt. G. F. Williams, Sup- 
ply Company, 2nd Battalion, will be placed in charge of the 
inventory of all property on the west side of the river. 

Lieut. Avery E. Lord, and one sergeant, will be detailed 
to make an inventory on east side of the river from Break- 
neck to and including Hillview Reservoir. 

This inventory will be made by actual count, and the 
property on hand will be listed as serviceable or unservice- 
able. 

The results of this inventory will be submitted promptly 



HI 



SEPTEMBER 131 

to the Commanding Officer in order that the exact amount 
of property on hand in the regiment can be determined. 

By Order of Colonel John B. Rose, 

T. R. HUTTON, 

Captain, ist Infantry, N. Y. G. 
Adjutant. 
Official: 

T. R. HuTTON, 

Captain, ist Infantry, N. Y. G. 
Adjutant. 

Paragraph I, S. 0. 40, Provisional Brigade, relieved Captain 
De Garmo from duty as Supply Officer of the First Provisional 
Regiment on the 7th until the 14th, and his place was taken by 
Captain Roche, who, during his tenure as acting Supply Officer 
was also battalion commander of the ist Battalion and com- 
manding officer of Company B, the three biggest jobs held by 
any one man in the history of the First Provisional Regiment 
at one and the same time. 

Sergeant Benvivido Fajardo, formerly of the Machine Gun 
Company, died on Sept. 9th from a self-inflicted wound. The 
story of Fajardo is told in the memorial chapter at the end of 
this history, one of the most pathetic and romantic incidents in 
the life of the First Provisional. 

On the loth, Lieut. Harry R. Lydecker left the regiment for 
officers' training school in the south and Scribner's Farm sector 
lost a good commanding officer. On the same date Sergt. 
Chauncey Cass of Company A, who had entered the regiment in 
August, 1917, as a private, having received his commission as 
second lieutenant, was assigned to duty with Company A. Second 
Lieut. William Wisner of the 14th Infantry was assigned to duty 
with Company M on the same date. 

Captain Lane was assigned Commanding Officer of Company 
D on the 14th, and Lieut. Towner was made Inspecting Officer 
of the 1st Battalion. Lieut. Avery E. Lord was brought to 
Regimental Headquarters to learn the work of the Adjutant, 
whose application for overseas service with the aerial photography 
section of the Signal Corps was being considered at Washington. 

Lieut. Clarence Higgs was transferred from Company C to 
Company D on the i8th, Lieut. W. A. Lynch of Company I be- 
came Summary Court Officer for the 3rd Battalion in place of 
Lieut. Lord, and Capt. Eugene Scherman was relieved from duty 
with the regiment to enter Federal service, his place being taken 



132 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

temporarily by Captain Snowden, but finally by Lieut. Miller. 
Captain Harte's release as of Sept. 15th was announced on the 
same date, and with him went ist Lieut. J. Noble Braden of Com- 
pany D. The regiment was losing good officers at a fast clip. 
On the following day Lieut. Gutterman was relieved from duty. 
On the 24th Capt. Ashley N. Keener, 71st Infantry, one of the 
regiment's best, took command of Company D. 

Leave of absence was granted Captain Roche on the 27th, 
and during his absence Captain Van Zandt of Company A com- 
manded the ist Battalion. 

. It was the last days of September that the dreaded Spanish 
influenza, which had been making terrific inroads in the national 
army cantonments, struck the line of the First Provisional Regi- 
ment, and on the 30th, Colonel Rose, with the authority of 
Colonel Westcott, the acting Adjutant-General, directed the estab- 
lishment of the First Field Hospital at Newburgh. Major Towns- 
end was sent to Albany to confer with the State health authori- 
ties and a quarantine was declared to exist in the regiment. The 
history of the influenza epidemic, which forms one of the most 
dramatic chapters of the regiment's work, appears in the section 
on the "Health of the Regiment." 

Captain Waterbury was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, Lieut. 
Horgan was directed to make headquarters at Croton Lake, Cap- 
tain Lane resumed his duties as Battalion Inspector. So the month 
closed with influenza raging in the camps of Captain Johnson 
and Captain Decker, and spreading gradually along the line. 



OCTOBER 

WITH almost the entire energy of the regiment turned toward 
the checking of the influenza epidemic, the Commanding 
Officer and Adjutant went northward on the 3rd, to be met at 
OHve Bridge with the report that Private Arthur F. Rourke had 
been shot and killed by a comrade at the Valhalla 4-A outpost 
that afternoon. The shooting was accidental. In the pressure 
of the influenza crisis it passed without the excitement that 
would have been caused by it in normal times. 

The acquisition of Field Hospital No. 2 at Ossining, formerly 
known as the Holbrook Military Academy, and given for the 
regiment's use in the crisis by V. Everit Macy, is fully described 
in the chapter on health. This was opened on the 8th with Major 
Clinton in charge. On the same day ist Lieut. George Whritenour 
of Company C, ist Infantry, with 16 men from that company, 
entered the field at St. Andrew's on the line of the 2nd Battalion, 
and Capt. A. S. Murray, ist Lieut. Robert F. Polhemus, and 30 
men of Company F took over the Machine Gun Company's line. 
Lieut. Elmer Miller was assigned finally as Supply Oflftcer of the 
2nd Battalion, Captain Lane was relieved of responsibility for 
the command of the ist Battalion and returned to his duties as 
Summary Court Officer and Inspector, while Captain Roche was 
again given battalion command, a position which he continued 
to hold until the release of his company from duty in the field in 
December. 

On the 9th, Lieut. Higgs reported to Field Hospital No. 2 for 
duty. It was about this time that Lieut. Miller received his 
commission as captain. Sergt. George A. Scheide, Q. M. C, 
attached to the Supply Company, became a second lieutenant, 
and orders of this time announced the commissioning of Gomer 
J. Pritchard of Captain Johnson's company as second lieutenant. 
On the 15th, Lieut. Albert A. Lankau of Company A, ist In- 
fantry, entered the field and was assigned to St. Andrews. 

Capt. Edward G. Bensen, M. C, attached to the loth Infantry, 
entered the field on the 17th and was assigned to the line of the 
2nd Battalion, thus leaving Captain Waterbury free to put his 
entire time at Field Hospital No. i, where the total cases and deaths 
were mounting fast. 



134 H-A-L-TT ! -^WHA-ZAA ? 

Capt. B. F. J. Kiernan, with Lieut. Hans F. Hofer and 83 en- 
listed men of the 71st Infantry, were placed under orders in New 
York on the 17th, and on the 21st were moved into the field, 
taking over the Company K sector. Captain White was relieved 
of command and assigned as Summary Court Officer and Inspect- 
ing Officer of the 3rd Battalion, ist Lieut. Frederic Baldwin and 
6'] men of Company K went to Company M, and ist Lieut. Rey- 
nolds, with all enlisted men of the 47th Infantry, was attached 
to Company L. This was the last big troop movement before the 
beginning of demobilization. 

About this time Lieut. Mauri MafFucci, Q. M. C, and Lieut. 
Charles L. Mulford, Q. M. C, were attached to Field Hospital 
No. 2, remaining with the regiment until the expiration of its 
service and performing excellent work. 

The acting Adjutant-General, Lieut. -Colonel Edward J. West- 
cott, had paid several visits to the line of the First Provisional since 
his appointment to office, and the conditions that he had observed 
led to a general loosening of strings in the matter of authority. 
As Chief Quartermaster of the State, Colonel J. Weston Myers 
had assumed responsibility for the expenditures necessary at the 
field hospitals, and there was no time at which either of these 
units lacked anything after the matter had been brought to Colonel 
Myers' attention. Despite the influenza epidemic, the condition 
of the regiment was improving every day, and its position, once 
so treacherously uncertain, was becoming more and more secure. 
It became increasingly evident that the knowledge that higher 
headquarters had lacked regarding the conditions under which 
the regiment had been obliged to operate had been secured by 
Colonel Westcott with immediate results. 

To consolidate the regimental gains. Colonel Rose had secured 
from V. Everit Macy a free lease of the premises of the old Hol- 
brook Military Academy for any regimental purpose whatsoever, 
until three months after the signing of the declaration of peace, 
and on Friday night, Oct. 25th, the Adjutant's office moved from 
Headquarters Hill at Croton Lake to the west wing of the big 
structure that was to be the home of the First Provisional Regi- 
ment headquarters until the end of the service. The old mess 
hall on the ground floor of the west wing was partitioned off^ to 
form a spacious office. 

Shortly afterward the entire staffs, with the exception of the 
Commanding Officer, who continued to sleep at Camp Rose, 
moved to the new headquarters, officers' quarters being assigned 
on the second floor of the west wing, with the Headquarters Com- 
pany and office force on the third floor. Orders were issued to the 



OCTOBER 135 

Supply Company to begin preparation for movement from Peeks- 
kill to the new headquarters. 

And so the end of October found the regiment in comfortable 
quarters, more secure than ever before, its lines weakened by the 
ravages of influenza and its hospitals crowded to capacity, but 
fighting unhampered and with hope. On the big football field 
on the flat to the east of the headquarters buildings the pigskin 
thumped merrily after work hours, and in the early mornings the 
Headquarters Company and patients found plenty of room for 
their callisthenics. Baths, lights, steam-heat, and such comforts 
as the men who had served with the regiment from its first days 
had never dreamed of, made life worth while. And the month 
closed in sunshine and wonderful foliage colorings that belied 
the reality of the Grim Reaper, gathering in handfuls and double 
handfuls from the ranks of the First Provisional. 



1 



NOVEMBER 

THE month brought the regiment its second election in the field, 
with all units voting either prior to or on Election Day. At 
Regimental Headquarters the first ballot was cast by Colonel 
Rose, with the election board consisting of Lieut. Towner, Sergt.- 
Major William J. Carroll, Mess Sergeant William Yates, and 1st 
Lieut. Clarence Higgs. Mrs. T. R. Hutton, as a civilian employee 
in the office of the Adjutant, cast the first vote among the women 
at the post, and the first vote ever cast by a woman with troops 
in the field in New York State. The second woman to vote was 
Lieut. Spaulding, commanding officer of the Dutchess County 
Ambulance Corps, Home Defense Reserve, that had been de- 
tailed by Governor Whitman to furnish transportation at the 
headquarters of the regiment during the influenza epidemic. Red 
Cross nurses and attendants also voted, the polling place being the 
non-commissioned officers' recreation-room. 

Lieut. Robert Polhemus was placed in charge of construction 
in the regiment with the departure of Lieut. Grover C. Weed for 
Federal service. Sergt. Stuart L. Newing of Company H, receiving 
his commission as first lieutenant, was continued on duty. 

During the epidemic and the first quarantine of the regiment, 
loss of men by draft had been halted under orders of the selective 
service division of the Adjutant-General's office, but with the 
removal of the quarantine from the 2nd Battalion on the 2nd, 
the ist and 3rd Battalions on the 13th, and Regimental Head- 
quarters on the 14th, draft losses began again. This resulted in 
telegrams of protest from Colonel Rose to the Adjutant-General, 
which were forwarded to the Provost-Marshal-General, and which 
are found in the chapter on "The Impregnable Line." 

First Lieut. William A. Lynch and 2nd Lieut. William D. 
Buckley were relieved from duty with the regiment on the 17th, 
at their own request, with the thanks of the Commanding Officer. 

The signing of the armistice had little effect on the First Pro- 
visional Regiment, save for a general warning sent out to all com- 
pany commanders not to slacken their guard lines in the slightest 
fashion. There was little celebration on the line itself, and hardly 
a ripple of the enthusiasm that twisted the nation in knots reached 



1 



NOVEMBER 137 

the posts and outposts of the men of the Aqueduct. Speculation 
as to date of relief of course became rife, but there was little else. 

The first memorial service for men of the regiment who had 
died on the Aqueduct was held at the Reformed Church in Walkill, 
not far from Captain Johnson's line, the afternoon of Nov. 17th, 
when Provisional Company G paid tribute to its early dead. This 
was when the first wave of the Spanish influenza epidemic had 
passed and when every one believed that the worst was over. 
Some of these men who participated in the service for their dead 
comrades later succumbed to the disease in its recurrent wave, 
and of these was Lieut. Gomer Pritchard. 

It was a mournful occasion, with all of nature outside lending 
color to the gloominess and the depression that marked the 
greater part of the event. The men of the command marched to 
the church in column, where the forward portion of the auditorium 
had been reserved for them. Colonel Rose, with Captain Pell, 
Captain Baldwin and Captain Hutton, sat on the platform with 
Captain Johnson, who conducted the service. 

Comrades of those men of Company G who had been taken 
paid tribute to their memory with prepared obituaries, which 
were read during the course of the service, and addresses were 
made by Colonel Rose, Captain Pell, Captain Baldwin, and 
Captain Johnson. It was at this service that Colonel Rose 
sounded the note of sacrifice in the service of humanity as man's 
highest privilege to die for others. *'Think of the millions of men 
who have marched down the halls of time, and of the proportionate 
few who have been privileged to die for another or for their 
country. . . . We are carried along the sea of life by an unswerving 
tide that sweeps us surely to that farther shore. Death cannot 
be avoided. It cannot be overcome. 

"Think, then, of what it means to be permitted to die for some 
one else — to die for one's country — when we all must die. Think 
of the Great God who looks down upon this world and points out 
here and there to this individual and says, 'John, or Charlie, 
I am going to pin upon your breast the most distinguished service 
medal that is within the Gift of Almighty God. I am going to 
permit you to give up your life as I gave the life of My only Son, 
Who died that the world might live.'" 

On Nov. 1 8th, after nearly a year of brigade control. Special 
Orders No. 277, A. G. O., detached the First Provisional Regiment 
from the Provisional Brigade and returned it to its former status 
as an independent unit, reporting directly to the Adjutant- 
General's office, as at the time of its entry into the field. The 
administration of regimental affairs was now totally in the hands 



138 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

of Colonel Rose, and the regiment, better and stronger than 
ever before in its history, made preparations for a whirlwind finish. 

On the 20th, Capt. L. B. De Garmo, Supply Officer of the First 
Provisional Regiment since its beginnings, was relieved from duty 
as such and assigned to duty with the Board of Survey appointed 
by the Adjutant-General to make a survey of property of the 
First Provisional Regiment. This board consisted of Lieut.- 
Colonel Edwin H. Moody and Major J. Roy Wilbur of the 4th 
Infantry, with Capt. George S. Norman of the 14th Infantry, 
who was later replaced by Major Willard Donner of the loth 
Infantry. 

Captain Nicholas Muller succeeded Capt. De Garmo as Supply 
Officer, with ist Lieut. Patrick J. Bradley and 2nd Lieut. Henry 
C. Inzelman, who had been commissioned a few days before. The 
other Supply Officers remained attached to Captain Mullet's 
force for the time being. 

Capt. Sidney Winters of the 4th Infantry, with ist Lieut. 
J. C. Moshier, ist Lieut. Joseph R. Page, and ist Lieut. Veeder 
Bergen and 176 men of the 4th Infantry, took over the total line 
of Company E, including Brown's Station, and 100 men of the 
4th Infantry were brought into Ossining, 60 forming a new Head- 
quarters Company and 40 a Supply Company. 

On this date Capt. Charles W. Baldwin, who had served as 
Chaplain of the Regiment without pay for some time, was assigned 
to duty in the field with the regiment, under pay. Capt. T. R. 
Hutton was reHeved from duty as Adjutant of the regiment and 
assigned to special duty with the Commanding Officer, and Lieut. 
Avery E. Lord, who was made captain on the ist of the following 
month, became Regimental Adjutant. 

Headquarters boomed with the advent of the new troops, and 
formal guard mounts and evening parades in battalion formation 
made the days brilliant with martial music and marching troops 
until the taking over of Camp Dyer and Camp Fisher on Sector 
S-5 cut the available force at headquarters to bare necessities. 
Both of the old Company A outposts were put under the charge 
of the commanding officer of Headquarters Company, with the 
original plan of relieving the details at each camp with fresh 
men from headquarters every seven days. 

With the advent of the Supply Company the supply office was 
established in the room just off the old school gymnasium, the 
floor of the gymnasium being converted to storage purposes. 
Members of the Supply Company were quartered in the con- 
necting wing of the buildings, commonly known as "the bridge," 
and the overflow occupied the second floor of the brick hospital 




upper /</^— Major (then Capt.) Frederick C. Kuehnle of the 3rd Bat- 
talion. Second-Lieut. J. Noble Braden of Company D. Lower left— 
Capt. Theodore T. Lane, regimental judge-advocate and summary court 
officer of the ist Battalion. Right~\J\twt. Harry R. Lydecker of Scrib- 
ner's Farm. 



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NOVEMBER 139 

wing, which was at that time emptying fast as the influenza 
epidemic waned. 

On the 2ist, Lieut. Wilbur J. Bowman of Company G, ist In- 
fantry, entered the field and was assigned to the Provisional 
Machine Gun Company on the 23rd. 

A portion of Captain Mullet's company accompanied him to 
Regimental Headquarters, a portion went to strengthen the line 
of Company F, and some went to Company B, but eventually 
most of the men of the old unit became a part of the Supply 
Company. 

The regiment lost an enthusiastic officer on the 22nd, when 
Capt. Ernest Van Zandt, who had since the beginning of the work 
commanded Company A, was relieved from duty, with the thanks 
of the Commanding Officer, to enter Federal service. As company 
and battalion commander, and especially as an instructor and 
indefatigable worker. Captain Van Zandt had established a com- 
pany with a reputation and a record that was subsequently lived 
up to by his successor, Lieut. Irving Ussiker, who became captain 
just after the ist of December, while Lieut. Cass became first 
lieutenant and Sergt. Frederick Simons second lieutenant. 

The holiday happiness of Thanksgiving Day along the line 
of the First Provisional was dampened by the fresh outbreak of 
influenza among the troops that had most recently entered the 
field. First appearing in Provisional Company E and then in 
Provisional Company B, the epidemic took heavy toll. The 
cases were of particularly virulent nature and snuff'ed men out 
like candle flames. 

Unfortunately, the Red Cross, which had co-operated with sup- 
plies and personnel at both the field hospitals, had withdrawn 
from the work with the lapse of the first epidemic, and the regi- 
ment, thrown entirely on its own resources, was obliged to meet 
a stiff" proposition. How well this was done is told in the chapter 
on the health of the organization. 

At the conclusion of the month the Board of Survey was oper- 
ating along the line, the new supply organization was co-ordinating 
in surprisingly smooth fashion, the guard lines were tight, and the 
regiment well in hand with all lines of control running into Regi- 
mental Headquarters, where the Commanding Ofl&cer was making 
preparations for the demobilization which he believed imminent. 
The Second Provisional was to disband on Dec. ist, and orders 
had been issued to that eff'ect, but there was nothing to indicate 
when the Aqueduct could be left unguarded. At the end of 
November the final distribution of ofl&cers and men along the 
line was as follows: 
10 



I40 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

Company A: Capt. I. J. Ussiker, ist Lt. C. A. Cass, 
2nd Lt. Frederick Simons and 99 enlisted men. 

Company B: Capt. J. J. Roche, ist Lt. E. M. Kirk- 
patrick, 2nd Lt. R. V. O'Grady and 94 enlisted men. 

Company C: Capt. E. C. Gibbs, ist Lt. C. W. Higgs, 
2nd Lt. C. Girdner and 96 enlisted men. 

Company D: Capt. A. N. Keener, 2nd Lt. J. La Doux 
and 89 enlisted men. 

Company E: Capt. S. Winters, Lt. Mosier, Lt. Bergen, 
Lt. Klinger, Lt. Page and 170 enlisted men. 

Company F: Capt. E. M. Decker, Lt. R. C. Launt, 
Lt. Richards and 72 enlisted men. 

Company G: Capt. J. W. Johnson, ist Lt. Therkild- 
sen, Lt. Eaton, Lt. Pritchard, Lt. Whritenour and 163 en- 
listed men. 

Company H: Capt. C. A. Hinman, ist Lt. A. B. Suttle, 
Lt. Newing and 70 enlisted men. 

Company I: Capt. D. F. Young and ^'j enlisted men. 

Company K: Capt. Kiernan, Lt. Rehm, Lt. Hofer and 
79 enlisted men. 

Company L: Capt. Pierce, Lt. Reynolds, Lt. Smith 
and 79 enlisted men. 

Company M: Capt. R. L. Vandewater, Lt. Wisner, Lt. 
Baldwin and 94 enlisted men. 

Machine Gun Co: Captain Murray, Lt. Polhemus, Lt. 
Lankau, Lt. Bowman and 88 enHsted men. 

Supply Co : Capt. N. W. Muller, Capt. L, B. De Garmo, 
Capt. A. H. Westcott, Lt. P. J. Bradley, Lt. C. L. Servatius, 
Lt. George Scheid, Lt. Harry Inzelman, Lt. Grover C. 
Weed and 60 enlisted men. 

Headquarters Co.: 92 enlisted men. 

Regimental Staff: Col. John B. Rose, Lieut. -Col. Wm. 
L. Burnett, Capt. C. W. Baldwin (Chaplain), Capt. How- 
land Pell, Capt. Thomas R. Hutton, Capt. T. T. Lane, Lt. 
John Towner, Lt. A. E. Lord, Lt. Mauri MafFucci, Lt. 
Chas. Mulford. 

Regimental Non-commissioned Staff: Sergt.-Major 
Charles J. BHzard, Sergt., ist Class, Francis X. Coughlan, 



NOVEMBER 141 

Sergt., 1st Class, Herbert F. Thornblade, Regimental Mess- 
Sergt. W. H. Yates, Sergt., ist Class, Joseph Lee, Battalion 
Sergt. -Major Wm. Carroll. 

Medical Officers: Major Charles E. Townsend, Maj. 
Charles A. Clinton, Capt. Earl C. Waterbury, Capt. John 
J. Horgan. 

Second Battalion Hdqrts: Major Chas. J. Lamb, 
Capt. George L. Snowden, ist Lt. C. L. Bechtol, 
1st Lt. Stuart Richards. 

Third Battalion Hdqrts: Major Frederick Kuehnle, 
1st Lieut. Leslie May. 



MIDWORD 

AND here the chronological history of the regiment ends. Prac- 
L tically all of the remaining period of the regiment's work was 
so thoroughly occupied with demobilization that almost the entire 
story of December and January is told in the '* Demobilization" 
chapter. Such portions of the history of the last month or so 
as do not appear in this chapter will be found in the other chap- 
ters bearing especially on the various phases of the regiment's 
history, which are treated separately and in detail. 

Leave the regiment at the height of its organization, strength, 
power and efficiency as it stood before the closing scenes and turn 
now to a more intimate consideration of some of the subjects 
that have formed the warp and woof of the chronological story. 

In the preparation of these chapters it has been the endeavor 
to make them of real value to those who in later years, meeting 
the same problems that the regiment met, may have somewhat of 
a guide, and profit by the experiences of this unique organization. 
In so far as possible, the officers most familiar with the various 
phases of regimental life, such as transportation and supplies, 
housing, health, etc., have been consulted in the preparation of 
these chapters, or have written them in portion, and in some 
cases, as noted, entirely. 

There is no claim that the way in which the First Provisional 
Regiment met its problems was in all cases the best way. But 
no methods were ever used for any extensive period of time that 
failed to give the best results. By process of elimination and 
constructive improvement such methods became of standardized 
work. Radical departure from precedent and in some cases 
regulations, were necessary, but were eventually and invariably 
approved by higher authority when the worth of such measures 
became apparent. 

Without pretense or undue pride, but in justice to those who 
were responsible for the administration of the affairs of the or- 
ganization, it should be stated at this point that no policy of 
THE Commanding Officer of the First Provisional Regiment 

WHICH HAD BEEN FINALLY DECIDED ON BY HIM AS THE BEST 
FOR THE NEEDS OF THE REGIMENT, WAS EVER ULTIMATELY DIS- 
APPROVED OR REVERSED BY HIGHER AUTHORITY, ALTHOUGH 
THERE WERE SOME INSTANCES WHEN TEMPORARY REVERSALS 
WERE TRIED, WITH DISASTROUS RESULTS. 



PART II 



THE LINE IMPREGNABLE 

A TRAVELER on the valley road between Pleasantville and 
Chappaqua might have seen, early one frosty evening, of 
late fall, 1917, a tiny searching ray of white light flash and die, 
high on the shoulder of Sarles Hill, above the twin siphons that 
mark the dip of the Catskill Aqueduct beneath the Harlem Rail- 
road tracks. 

It was this same tiny, inadvertent flash that caused sudden 
halt in a stealthy advance that had begun at the base of the hill 
an hour before — an advance marked now and then by a whispered 
word, the rustle of leaves underneath, or the snap of a crushed 
twig. Along the shoulder of the hill stole a file of men, visible 
only as dark shadows that now and then detached themselves 
from the darker tree-shapes of the forest background. 

The flash of light was accompanied by a sliding, scraping sound, 
the scurry of leaves, a thump, and a curse, low, but emphatic. 
At once the stealthy file on the hillside merged into the tree back- 
ground. For a full minute there was utter silence. The man 
who had fallen lay where he was, looking up at the frosty stars 
overhead, ears strained for the slightest sound from the valley 
below. 

"We aren't where they can see us yet. Go ahead, and be careful. 
Hurt yourself?" came in a whisper from a heavy shadow against 
one of the tree trunks. 

"No, Tm all right. Where's the lead?" 

"Up here to your right," came a smothered voice from the 
bank above. Come up around to your right. Ready, back 
there?" 

And the file moved slowly through the treacherous brush, 
arms raised before faces to protect the eyes from the tall brier 
bushes that grew in patches on the hillside. 

Approaching the sky-line, the leader turned abruptly to the 
left and followed parallel to the backbone of the ridge for some 
little distance. At the edge of an opening in the trees the party 
paused until the last man had come up. On the far side of the 
clearing against the sky a huge skeleton shape towered into the 
air — the high tension-line tower marking the course of the Sarles 
Hill tunnel. 



146 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

Beneath and through the sheer rock ran the artery on which 
depended the safety of New York City from the danger of the 
torch. Emerging at the siphon-house, it dropped across the valley 
and beneath the railroad, shooting up with tremendous pressure 
to the other side through the steel pipe. 

Between the Aqueduct and the well-calculated charge of TNT, 
so placed as to destroy the upper end of the siphon, stood one 
man in O. D. — and a rifle — perhaps a dog. And the word had 
come that of late little attention was being paid the siphon and 
more to the game of flushes and straights that has made so many 
beginners poor. Three nights before, a stealthy form had wiggled 
down the path leading from the high-tension pole at the top of 
the hill to the siphon-house below. Report had gone back of a 
break in this line of rifles that since the beginning of the war 
had bristled like the quills of a surly porcupine from the head- 
works at Ashokan to the final tunnel plunge of the waterway at 
Hillview. If this were true; if the line were weak, then this was 
the place for attack. 

At a motion from the tallest of the party, who seemed to be 
in command, one of the dark figures on the hill above the siphon 
crossed to the foot of the high-tension pole and looked over the 
edge of the steep hill into the valley below, where a dull light 
glowed. Then he began picking his way carefully down the path, 
crouched low to the earth that he might not show against the 
sky-line, the rest of the party following at fifteen-foot intervals. 

At first the progress was fairly easy, but presently, with a 
signal for caution, the leader dropped to his hands and feet, 
descending feet foremost with his weight resting largely on his 
hands. A short distance farther and one of his feet had descended 
on thin air. The calf of his leg rested on the edge of what seemed 
to be an abrupt ending of the path. Shifting cautiously to his 
knees, he felt outward and down, down — He -drew back and 
waited for the second in line. 

"Tell them to watch out. It drops away sheer here. Keep 
to your left." 

Again the silent descent. Then a pebble rattled away down 
the path from beneath hand or foot and in an instant the line 
froze against the hillside. From somewhere below rose a softly 
whistled, "Over There." The red and green lights of the sema- 
phore arms on the right-of-way down the valley winked peacefully. 

And the dark line crept downward, almost noiseless, a few 
inches at a time, but steadily, steadily, downward, toward — 

"H-a-a-1-ltt!" 

It came from the darkness below, an intense, threatening chal- 



THE LINE IMPREGNABLE 147 

lenge. Silence on the hillside, where the black figures merged into 
the darkness of the path. Then: 

"Who's there?" 

A long, long wait, so long that it seemed like hours berore 
a heavy voice below growled, "Damned cow!" and the whistling 
went on. 

The party on the hillside had barely started its descent again 
when a heel grated on a piece of rough rock with an unmistakably 
metallic sound. 

"H-a-a-1-ltt!" This time it was certain, and ready; and again 
came the hoarse query: 

"Who's there?" 

Far away there sounded the rumble of an approaching train. 
A wagon rattled on a road somewhere in the night. 

"Who's there? Who's up there on the hill?" 

Still no voice or motion from the dark shadow clumps on the 
winding path. 

"Who's there? Answer, or I fire!" The clicking of a Spring- 
field bolt supported the statement. 

"Lie close!" came the whispered warning along the path from 
the leader. The men on the side-hill flattened themselves silently, 
until they seemed a part of the very path in the shadows of the 
high weeds. 

"Corporal of the Guard! Post No. i !" rang the call below, 
then repeated. 

Came the flash of an electric torch by the railroad, a sound of 
running feet, and finally a breathless exchange of inquiry and 
information. 

" Some one up on the hill ! I heard them !" 

The voices dropped to a muffled murmur, and then the white 
finger of the electric torch swung here and there along the side 
of the hill, questioningly. Below, in the brush, came the noise of a 
detail from the outpost, searching. 

And then quiet, save for the nearer rumble of the train from 
the south. 

"Nobody up there," said the sergeant's voice below. Whistling, 
he and the men with him went down the path to the tents of the 
outpost. The light of the torch died away, and the train came on 
with a rush and a roar that filled the valley with sound. 

"Now! Fast, while the train is going by," urged the leader of 
the party on the hillside. 

Heedless of noise, the entire line moved down the hill with a 
rapid rush, thirty — forty — fifty — feet. The train passed beneath 
a red-bellied cloud of smoke as the fireman flung open his fire- 



148 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

door. A long silence. The forms on the path were still. No, they 
were just moving, a fraction of an inch at a time, without sound. 
In the darkness of the path a short, blued barrel glinted slightly 
as the hand holding it moved forward and downward just a little. 

And then, with a roar, a train swept down the valley from the 
north, filling the air with its passing racket. Waiting until the 
engine was almost abreast of the echoing hill, the approachers 
rose and to the rattle of the train pushed down — down — down 
into a sudden flare of white light, the threatening shiny muzzles 
of three rifle barrels, and a shout that was almost a scream: 
"H-a-a-l-ltt!" 

Two of the leading figures were caught upright, breast high 
above the weeds. At the right a third flattened into the half- 
darkness with just the faintest stir of brown tops to betray it. 
The rest of the party on the path melted into the hillside. 

It was startling, dramatic. It had come as a complete sur- 
prise to the descending party, who now appreciated that their 
opponents had made use of the same agency as themselves to 
hide the noise of their advance. Only the soldiers had known of 
the others' whereabouts. 

With something of a shock, the guardians of the siphon saw 
that these prowlers of the night, caught within a few feet of the 
siphon house, were dressed in the uniform of officers. And one, 
he who was apparently the leader, a big man with gray hair, spoke 
up sharply. 

"All right! What do you say next?" 

From the darkness, behind the white dazzling light and the 
rifle muzzles, came the reply: 

"I'll tell you what I say next. Cover him. You, behind, move 
out into the light. Watch that stuff" over there. Somebody's 
trying to get away. Stand up, you! If he doesn't stand up, 
shoot!" 

The leader of the attacking party turned toward the side- 
hill, where the slight sway of bushes showed that the third member 
was wiggling his way to the shadows despite the threat. "Stand 
up. Captain," he said. 

"You be quiet," came the voice behind the lights again. "Put 
up your hands. Keep them up. You, too. I'll tend to this. 
Now you come down here," as the third member of the attacking 
party rose from the brush. "Cover him. Keep them covered. 
Now one at a time. Come on! Watch them. Shoot if they try 
to run." 

"Don't you recognize me?" asked the leader of the party. 

"No! Never saw you before! Come on!" 



THE LINE IMPREGNABLE 149 

"Fm the Commanding Officer of this regiment." 

"Maybe you are. You'll have to talk to the Captain. Come 
on. They tell us anybody can buy a uniform. I guess that's 
right. I don't know any of you. We're new on this job, but if 
you're who you say you are, it will be all right. Only if you're 
the Commanding Officer of this regiment, I don't see why you 
come in this way. Come along!" 

And down the side-hill went the party in double file, the men 
with the rifles at "ready" covering the others closely. 

At the siphon-house the sergeant paused and turned over the 
prisoners to the corporal of the guard. "Take them over there 
and make them keep their hands up. We'll take them to camp." 

"Aren't you going back for the rest of them up there.?" asked 
the leading prisoner. 

"Never mind! We'll take care of any more there are." 



And they did. They sent in a dog after the Lieut.-Colonel, 
and they hauled him and the Regimental Inspector down the 
hill to the other siphon, where the captured first three stood with 
their hands in the air trying to argue with the sentry who covered 
them that they should be allowed to use their handkerchiefs. 

"I can't help it if your noses run off your faces," he was saying 
as the new-comers arrived. "Orders is orders." In a pile on the 
ground before the siphon lay the prisoners' side-arms. 

"How many men have you here.?" asked one of the prisoners. 

No reply. The question was repeated. 

"We've got enough," answered the man behind the gun. 



The Colonel sent that outpost a chicken dinner. 



And now a clipping from a New York paper in the fall of 1918: 
"How the present Adjutant-General of the State of New York 
and Col. Edward E. Powell of the 4th Infantry spend an interest- 
ing half hour as prisoners in a 'cooler' on the Aqueduct is the 
story that is gleefully going the rounds of the posts from the 
Ashokan Reservoir to Yonkers, where the men of the First Pro- 
visional Regiment are guarding New York City's water supply. 

"It happened on the sector near Peekskill that is guarded by 
a company of the 69th — Provisional Company B, with Capt. 
John J. Roche commanding, and one of the 69th men tells the 
story. 



ISO H-A-L-TT I — WHA-ZAA ? 

"*They come up the Muct while I was on post — two of *em — 
and I stopped 'em quick!' 

"''^Halt!" says I. "Who's there?" 

"'"The Adjutant-General of the State of New York and party," 
says somebody in the dark. 

"'"Advance, Adjutant-General. Party stand fast," says I, 
And one of them comes up to me and halts suddint when I tell 
him to. He didn't have any light to throw on his face, so he 
scratches a match. 

"'"I don't recognize you. You'll have to put up your hands," 
I tells him. So up go his meat hooks and I advance the other 
party. I don't know him, either, so he puts up his hands. Then 
they start an argument with me about being officers and going 
on; but it don't go. 

"'"Uniforms don't mean nothin' to me," I tells 'em. "Any 
sucker with the price can go buy a uniform, but nobody goes 
through here 'less I know him or somebody vouches for him that 
I know." 

"'"But I'm the Adjutant-General," says one of them. 

'""If you came along here and said you was Gawd Almighty 
or General Pershing you couldn't go through 'less you proved it," 
says I, and the other one giggles. 

""Don't you know you hadn't ought to talk to officers like 
that?" he says. 

"'"Mister, I don't even know you're officers," says I. "And 
if you was, I'd be doing just what you'd want me to right now," 
I tells him. 

'"Well, they give me an awful argument, with this and that 
and the other thing, and I listens as polite as I can and don't 
let 'em through. I knew the Skipper had gone down the line 
previous and I was waitin' for him to come back, but when I'd 
waited a while I tells one of them to use the telephone on the 
post and call for the corporal of the guard. He does and down 
comes the corporal. He don't know 'em, either, and off they go 
with their hands up, me bein' relieved at the time and goin' with 
them and the corporal. 

"'You don't know Fatty Bland? Well, Fatty'd broke quar- 
antine for about five minutes and was in the jug at camp. You 
know we're under quarantine for influenza. Fatty was in the 
cooler, and they went in with Fatty, but he never knew it. He 
always sleeps like he was dead and pulls the blanket up over his 
nut in the bargain. 

"'It was kinda dark in there and they rattled around a lot. 
'Bout the time they'd been there a half-hour in comes the 



THE LINE IMPREGNABLE 151 

Skipper with Colonel Rose and they go to take a look at the 
prisoners. 

'"''Why that's Colonel Westcott and Colonel Powell," says 
the C. O., when they are brung out for him to look at. He was 
grinnin', too, because the A.-G. had stepped into Fatty's wash- 
pail in the dark and he was kinda wet down below. 

"'It seems they was all inspecting and the A.-G. and Colonel 
Powell got ahead of the rest of them quite a long ways. They 
all had a good laugh about it at the guard-house and then they 
went on. I heard the A.-G. was out on the line all night.'" 



The scene shifts again. This time to a darkened culvert on a 
northern sector. 

It is night, and a black-faced man in rough civilian clothes is 
creeping stealthily through the sparse growth outside the fence 
that marks the dead-line of the First Provisional at that point. 
As the prowler approaches the vicinity of the culvert he halts 
suddenly as a boy's voice comes to him through the night. The 
words are indistinguishable; apparently the sentry is talking with 
somebody. Quietly the man with the blackened face approaches. 

Above, on the cut and cover, silhouetted against the sky, is the 
figure of the guard, leaning on his rifle and speaking to — some 
one. There is no one else on the sky-line and the man in the bushes 
below is puzzled for a moment. And then the truth dawns on him. 

For the lonely boy on the culvert is talking to the One in whom 
he has come to put his whole trust in the lonely watches of the 
night. He is asking his mother's God for strength and help and 
courage. 

"... and You know I ain't a quitter. They laugh back there 
about me being afraid. Well, maybe I am, but I'm staying, ain't 
I ? You know it ain't no cinch for me. But if You'll keep on 
helping me, God, . . . It's dark here. I don't know but maybe 
they'll be trying it to-night. Just help me to stop them. Help 
me! Help me to stop them. Don't let anything happen. . . ." 

The boy's voice dies away to a whisper. In the bushes below 
the Commanding Officer of the First Provisional Regiment bares 
his head reverently and then slips quietly back into the blackness 
of the night. This is the regiment's real strength — the man who, 
like his commanding officer, trusts in the God of his fathers. 



And now on Sector S-i. 

It is the same old story of line-testing by the sinister forces. 



152 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

The story a hundred times repeated in the history of the regiment 
and a dozen times on this sector alone. Only — 

"Halt!" 

There is a rush of feet on the grass at the side of the cut and 
cover and three dark figures run across from the stone wall 
toward the man on post. 

No time here for preliminaries. With a coolness that would 
have credited a listening-post man of the front line in Flanders, 
the sentry drops to his stomach on the far side of the embankment 
and opens fire point blank. There is a subdued cry from the 
darkness, another rush and the sound of some one scrambling 
over the stone wall. A shot or two follows the sound for good luck. 
Then the corporal of the guard comes and it is the same old story 
of the fruitless search in the brush. 

The corporal is frankly skeptical. 

"Say, you make me tired. That's three times this week you've 
shot, and nobody yet. I don't believe you saw anybody." 

But the next morning the sector buzzes. 

For back from the wall the daylight searchers have found a 
matted place in the weeds where the grasses are still soaked with 
red, wet stuff that leaves no doubt as to the doings of the night 
before. 

The hospitals and doctors of the vicinity are advised to watch 
for some one with a bullet wound and to advise headquarters im- 
mediately. But the "innocent victim" of the previous night 
goes to no hospital and consults no doctor he does not know to 
be "in sympathy." Johnson's line draws first blood. 

But "They" had "Their" turn once in a while, too. In the 
darkness of Shaft Five on N-2, the roar of the falling water deep 
in the shaft-house filling his ears. Sentry Poole hears the approach 
of a party, challenges, gives the alarm, and pursues, takes the 
lead of his support, and before he can be helped is laid out with 
a nasty wound over his head and a bicycle pump on the ground to 
tell how it was done. Poole goes to the hospital. 

And later, on Post 5, near the Peak, Sergeant Lown finds 
Private Potter unconscious on his post with a heavy lump rising 
on his head. No, it was not always one-sided. 

Read now of a night on the D line near Scribner's Farm, just 
as the story went through the channel to the United States 
IntelHgence service at West Point, terse and without embellish- 
ment: 



THE LINE IMPREGNABLE 153 

October 5th, 1918. 

From Commanding Officer Co. D, ist Prov. Regt., 

N. Y. G. 
To: Commanding Officer ist Prov. Regt., N. Y. G. 

Subject: Activity of unknown persons on Aqueduct 

from Peekskill South Siphon to Croton 

Lake, Scribner's Farms. 

At 2.25 A.M. firing being reported at post six, Culvert 
148, 1 took a patrol and followed the road to a point opposite 
the Culvert. 

There I picked up a Corporal and a patrol of two men, 
previously taken out by Sergeant Mashin. 

This patrol reported that they had followed a man from 
the pipe line to the state road, drove him out into it and 
the non-commissioned officer. Corporal Smith, on the man's 
refusal to halt opened fire. 

As far as known the man was not hit. 

The fugitive turned into the driveway of Baron Blank's 
Agricultural School and disappeared. 

I led the patrol through the grounds, stationed five men 
in the driveway, and sent three men to surround the other 
side of the house. 

Sergeant Mashin and myself then investigated. 

On the side porch we found a pair of rubber overshoes 
(one-clasp) wet and covered with mud that had been washed 
off in places showing their wearer had been in the wet grass. 

We then went to the front door and rang the bell. 

Repeated ringing brought no response, so we retired to 
the driveway and kept quiet. 

In about five minutes the windows in an upper room 
lit up. 

We then returned to the house and after a little delay 
the door was opened and I went in alone. 

I do not know the name of the man who admitted me. 

Being questioned, he at first claimed to have heard noth- 
ing but suddenly remembered he had heard some trouble 
on the Aqueduct. 

He did not appear to have been asleep, although dressed 
in pajamas and bath robe. 

Got no satisfaction here so we left patrol in drive and 
searched outbuildings but found nothing. 

Marched patrol back to road and got in machine. 

Machine stalled at foot of first hill. 



154 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

Simultaneously two shots were fired on Aqueduct and 
lights flashed from house. 

After waiting a few minutes and after patrol on Aqueduct 
finding nothing ordered them and my patrol back to the 
barracks. 

On getting in got report from patrol on Aqueduct that 
they heard some one in old quarry and that signal had been 
flashed from cliff" above; could not locate senders. 

These men could not see the house, but I could, and the 
lights from there, the cliflF, and shots fired all came together. 

The ground where all this took place was carefully gone 
over by Lieutenant Higgs and myself the following morning. 
We followed an old wagon road back to the woods along 
the Aqueduct and there found several well-defined trails 
leading to Culverts 148 and 149. 

These had been used during the night, indications even 
being shown of places where men had lain down and watched 
the sentries. 

I crossed the pipe at this point and found indications of 
the same kind on the other side of the duct, if anything 
more marked. 

No patrol had been sent into the woods on this side and 
sentry did not fire, although he heard noise there, because 
previously ordered not to by his Corporal. 

In addition to the Blank place, there is a family by the 
name of Doe, who hve immediately back of Culvert Num- 
ber 000 and who are from all reports intensely pro-German. 
On making reconnaissance on the evening of October 4th, 
I discovered a path leading from this house through a tangle- 
ment of bushes and over a stone wall, leading directly to 
Culvert 000. 

It has further been reported that the following remarks 
were made by one of the Doe boys to Billy Sabatto, owner 
of store near Culvert 000, ''that President Wilson ought 
to have his heart cut out, and that they (meaning the 
Doe family) were down on the American Flag." 

There is another family by the name of A , living 

about yards northwest of this post between the road 

and the Aqueduct, who are also pro-German, so much so 
that Private Geller's family have broken off" social relation- 
ship. 

Bugler Martin reports having seen signal lights on the 
night of October 6th, coming from this house. Sat on his 
horse in the road, and watched them for about 5 minutes, 




o 





C< 



IM 





Upper—Lieut. Bradley and Company E detachment at Brown Sta- 
tion Barracks. Center — Some of the Company D men (71st Infantry). 
Lower — Camp Wells, Crompound Road, Company D. 



THE LINE IMPREGNABLE 155 

and as he described them: a woman stood in the window, 
raised and lowered the curtain about three times, after 
which she brought a lamp back and forth across the window 
twice. 

Mr. A is reported to have made this statement, 

"that the Germans would win this war and that he could 
cross the Aqueduct any time he saw fit, and the soldiers 
would not touch him.'' 

Corporal Smith reports to have seen a German flag in the 
A s' residence. 

Signals have been reported by sentries on post No. 3 as 
of frequent occurrence from this point. 

(Signed) Ashley N. Keener 

Captain 71st Infantry, N. Y. G. 

26-27 1ST IND. 

Hdqrs. 1st Prov. Regt. N. Y. G., Croton Lake, N. Y., 

Oct. 16, 1919. 
To: Major James B. Ord, U. S. Military Academy, West 
Point, N. Y. 
Reported for his information. 

By direction. 



To the step on the cut and cover; to the slow stealthy rustling 
in the bushes or grasses at the dead-Hne's edge; to the sneaking 
dark form in the roadway a stone's throw away; to all that 
threatened or seemed to threaten — 

-H-a-a-a-1-tt!" 

It was the voice of the Line — the Line Impregnable. The Line 
that Was Not Broken ! 



What of this line that ran from the Catskills to the great city 
itself.? What of its workings, and the things that made it possible .? 
How was it wrought } 

It is of these things, of the regiment's most vital and dramatic 
phase, that this chapter tells. 



The reader who has grasped the fundamentals of the mobili- 
zation period cannot fail to appreciate the tremendous task that 
faced the regiment in the mere matter of beginnings. Without 
11 



156 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

reliable maps, with little time to secure the necessary informa- 
tion, and green men to operate with, the line was taken over 
in 57 hours. Added to this was the fact that the First Provisional 
approached the problem of the Aqueduct from an entirely different 
angle than had the National Guard troops which preceded the 
new organization. Guard duty, as viewed from the standpoint 
of vital necessity for protection, with a working force of 1,200 men 
is something different from guard duty when considered as merely 
a part of a tour of field duty where 3,200 men are available, and 
90 per cent, of them seasoned veterans. 

How the single idea of guarding the water supply of the City 
of New York was inculcated into these green troops has been 
hitherto indicated. When the commanding officers of the various 
units left the mobilization camps at Lambert Farm and Peekskill 
they carried in addition to this idea some very definite instruc- 
tions as to the methods of operation, preparation and continua- 
tion tending to emphasize the importance of the work. 

Brush at and near the culvert mouths and other vulnerable 
points was to be cut, and grass and weeds slashed away wherever 
they grew of sufficient height to afford cover to an enemy. Along 
the entire line of the Aqueduct culvert entrances may be found 
far beyond the actual line of the cut and cover and in some cases 
outside of the city property line. These were overgrown and in 
many cases had accumulated a large amount of rubbish. So the 
men of the regiment were made familiar in the earliest days with 
the local topography of each culvert, as they labored to cut away 
the grass, the brush and the weeds from the entrances and from 
the vicinity of the siphon-houses. 

How enthusiastic some of them were in the matter is best 
illustrated by a story that Capt. Hayden J. Bates, Q. M. C, told 
in the Adjutant-General's office at Albany upon his return from 
an inspection of the newly taken-over line for the Division of 
Defense and Security. 

"Down on the Veteran Corps sector," said Captain Bates, 
with his slight, inimitable drawl, "I found a squad of brokers 
and bankers pretty nearly breaking in two up on the Aqueduct, 
cutting the grass for yards and yards along the top. I asked 
them what they were doing that for. 

"'Colonel Rose said to cut the grass,' one of them told me, 
and they all nodded. It was really pathetic but I thought I'd 
scream. 

"'But,' I said, 'my dear chaps, he didn't want you to turn 
gardeners, you know. This is all very fine but it wouldn't make 
good hay.' 



THE LINE IMPREGNABLE 157 

"But you couldn't dissuade them. They just went on cutting 
grass. I suppose they mowed the entire top of the Aqueduct 
before they were through." 

If there was one thing the First Provisional was remarkable 
for it was its literal interpretation of everything. 

The cutting of the grass and weeds finished on the entire line, 
the men were next turned to cutting steps into the side of the 
cut and cover embankment to make possible the 15-minute in- 
spections ordered for culvert mouths. These steps were barely 
footholds, but saved a great deal of time on the slippery grass 
of the banks and resulted in the ordered inspections. Some 
sectors went so far as to borrow cement and construct their 
steps of concrete on a few culverts, while on other sectors the 
footholds were stepped with flat stones. In winter the men cut 
steps into the snow, as the earth footholds soon became slippery 
with much travel. 

When the steel culvert gratings that had been promised did 
not come through, barrier and entanglement construction began 
sporadically along the line, and finally assumed formidable and 
organized proportions. This was largely an act of self-preserva- 
tion on the part of the men at a time when fixed night post for 
each vulnerable point had to be converted to patrol post work 
due to the shortage of man power. The sentry covering two 
culverts and a manhole felt better about his position when the 
manhole was covered with turf and the culverts had some sort 
of barrier over the entrances. Care had to be exercised in the 
construction of the various culvert screens that they did not 
interfere with the flow of surface water they were intended to 
drain. The men did their work in what would have been off" time 
and under the general supervision of their sector commanders, 
although they were allowed to exercise as much individual in- 
genuity as was consistent and met the needs of the particular 
problem. 

In some places a chevaux de frise was erected at the entrance 
to the culvert, with old barbed wire interlaced among the sharpened 
branch points that bristled toward the intruder. In one or two 
instances pitfalls with sharpened stakes and barbed wire entangle- 
ments were constructed. Wooden gratings made of all kinds of 
material from two-inch saplings to old railroad ties, predominated 
as culvert protections, however. Chicken-wire netting inter- 
laced with barbed wire was sometimes used where culverts were 
near highways from which a bomb might be tossed into the cul- 
vert's mouth. Some of the obstructions were variously camou- 
flaged to prevent recognition in daytime by prowlers who might 



158 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

be looking the ground over preparatory to night attack. Ever- 
greens predominated in this, and there were two or three of the 
larger culverts on the N-3 Sector so ingeniously concealed that 
they lost their identity at a distance of 200 feet. 

Boat holes, the long, narrow metal-covered apertures used to 
lower boats into the Aqueduct for inspection work, were in many 
cases covered with piles of rocks picked up from the near-by 
terrain, and on a number of the Company A's posts there were 
rock-pile-covered boat holes that would have meant three hours 
of steady labor for two men to uncover. 

All kinds of alarm devices were used by the sentries to warn 
them of the approach of persons along the Aqueduct from the 
bushes on either side or in the vicinity of structures. The post 
of Sergt. C. A. J. Queckberner at the Kensico Influent, the man 
who won the world's hammer-throw title before the King of 
England, was perhaps the leader in this respect, and the story 
of an attempt made by staflF officers to eff'ect an entrance to the 
vulnerable point under cover of darkness, is indicative of what the 
average intruder would have had to face. 

The Kensico Influent Chamber is on the shore of the lake just 
below the brow of a steep hill which may be reached without 
difficulty and out of sight of the sentry from the State highway. 
Approaching from the highway at the level of the lake is a short 
construction road. This the officers knew to be strung with wires 
connected to bells and tin cans filled with stones, so no attempt 
was made to enter at the lake level. The party descended from 
the hill through a footpath, in pitch dark, unable to use a flash- 
light because of the danger of attracting attention from the sentry 
below. 

Before the group was within 300 feet of a position overlooking 
the outpost barracks and vulnerable point, one of the officers in 
the lead scraped a fine wire strung on staples among the trees 
and camouflaged by underbrush, and the jangling of a bell near the 
sentry's post advised him that something or some one was ap- 
proaching along the top of the hill. 

After that the officers moved more slowly, close to the ground 
and watching for wires, but in doing this one of the members 
tripped on another bell wire strung close to the ground on the 
same path. 

The path was abandoned and the raiding party lay close in the 
brush, while a patrol sent out in response to the bell signals 
beat the hilltop without avail. After the beaters had left the 
vicinity another start was made, and by a judicious dodging of 
wires and cords no further alarm was sent in until a windrow of 



THE LINE IMPREGNABLE 159 

crackly dry brush extending entirely across the brow of the hill 
gave further notice of the approach. Below this brush a veritable 
maze of wires and ground lines ran, one connected with a big 
bucket filled with cans and stones that toppled from its position 
on a stump at a tug of a wire and coasted along a heavy wire 
through the brush, down the hill, landing with a heavy crash 
against a pile of bottles and cans erected in its path. Even the 
roar of the influent could not drown such a noise as that! The 
system on the hillside, augmented by lanterns and reflectors 
mounted on posts, was nearly perfect. 

A path reaching along the lake was protected by a heavy 
chevaux de frise, with barbed wire and dry brush as auxiliaries, 
and during the winter the bank of the lake was kept glary with 
ice to prevent access over the frozen lake. 

This system of alarms spread throughout the length of the 
line. At some of the posts near the Kensico aerating plant, where 
there was little or no outside noise, ingeniously coiled wires on 
manhole covers sprang up with a grating sound on the hollow 
cover, giving warning of the approach of any one. Ordinary trip 
lines spread on pegs close to the ground and hidden by leaves 
were sufl&cient to set the entire string of cans arattle. 

The biggest handicap suflFered by the men on post was the 
lack of lights. These had been promised by the City of New 
York, and after much delay, action was finally secured that 
brought about the erection of electric culvert lights and furnish- 
ing of current on most of the sectors east of the Hudson. The 
brackets were mounted on the telephone post at the culvert, 
and the shades were so constructed as to throw a flare on the 
culvert mouth and the territory adjoining, while the cut-and-cover 
and the sentry on post were in darkness. This gave the man on 
the post a distinct strategic advantage, and had there been lights 
on all sectors, there would have been no men laid out on the 
northern end of the line. As it was, the construction of the light 
system was progressing rapidly and all barracks on both sides 
of the river had been wired, when the work of light installation 
was halted during Colonel Rose's illness in the early summer of 
1918. In the fall of 1918, by orders of Acting-Adjutant- 
General, Col. Edward J. Westcott, the work was to have been 
resumed when the armistice stopped everything. A deal of diflft- 
culty was experienced in keeping the bulbs in the culvert lights 
replaced, as for some time there was no authority available for 
the purchase of the bulbs on sectors where the current was 
turned on. 

While the men waited through the fall and winter of 1917-1918 



i6o H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

for the long-delayed lights, lanterns with reflectors were used by 
all commanding officers who could obtain them. The lantern 
was at best a makeshift, as without adequate reflector it did not 
give the sentry the proper amount of protection. 

And this leads to a consideration of the odds which were 
against the sentry under the best circumstances. They may be 
divided roughly into the psychological odds and the physical 
odds, and their consideration involves much of the regiment's 
greatest problem in maintaining its impregnable line. 

Under the heading of the psychological odds will be observed 
all forces militating against proper mental attitude. Of these 
nervous tension was without doubt the most influential on the 
beginner. In the case of the country-bred boy this was not likely 
to be as weighty as with the city man. The country boy, accus- 
tomed to night silence and night noises, minded not a bit the 
hoot of the owl, the gleam of huge fireflies in the thickets and the 
rustle of the tiny woods animal in the grass at the city property 
line. He knew that a cow in the moonlight was not a ghost, 
and the fact that there were no cows pastured in the adjacent 
field during the daytime did not make him suspicious or doubtful 
of cow noises there at night, because he knew the difference be- 
tween, and the use of, night and day pastures. 

He knew that under given conditions a piece of rock will flash 
in the moonlight as clouds race over the face of the moon, and 
that moonlight in a cow's eyes does not mean some huge monster 
of the darkness waiting for a spring. His hunting experiences 
had taught him that a stump, when watched long enough, will 
do a veritable hula, and he did not blaze at many of the moving 
stumps that caught it so hard in the early days on the sectors 
covered by city troops. His trained ear told him the difference 
between the sound of water racing over rocks and the splashing 
of some one walking in the stream. In winter he knew that a 
track covered with ice had not been made within a half hour, 
and that unbroken snow around a culvert mouth meant that no 
one had been near the culvert. 

But all of these things and many others must be learned by 
the boy accustomed even in the comparative quiet of night in the 
city to the roar of the elevated, the rattle of distant wagons and 
the incessant hum of the great city which never quite dies out 
even in the early hours of the morning. The tours were long, the 
isolation of posts a quarter of a mile and a half mile apart was 
great, and the incessant staring into the blackness, the flutter 
of the heart at the crash in the brush beyond the wall, and the 
certainty that some one or something was just behind one's back. 



.«^ 



THE LINE IMPREGNABLE i6i 

watching, always watching and preparing to leap, made the 
tension terrific. 

And when the man on post sought to relieve this tension by 
whistling the very sound of his own whistle startled him and 
cautioned him that he was giving notice of his whereabouts to 
some one who might mean harm. While this was in a way true, 
the custom of calHng the half-hour and hour from post to post 
held such a large psychological advantage that a number of the 
unit commanders appreciating it early in the work, instituted the 
custom on their sectors. Captain Westcott's Syrians on N-5 
chanted their half-hours regularly, and the acoustic properties 
of the sector were such that in the early morning hours the call 
of, "One o'clock and all is well!" could be heard coming down 
the valley for a distance of five or six posts. Captain Muller's 
men repeated the time-calls regularly from post to post. The 
result was good. It kept the men in touch with one another and 
served as contact with post or outpost camp until the telephones 
were put into service. 

There is one memory picture in this connection that stands 
out vividly. It was after 2 o'clock on a starlit autumn morning 
in 19 17 when a party of officers arriving at Captain Wilbur's 
post at the Peak, paused for a moment to admire the heavens 
before going in. The intense silence of the early morning hours 
hung over the mountains. 

And while the officers stood beneath the stars, a strong, clear 
voice on the mountainside began to sing that song that revived 
from Spanish War days with the entry of American troops into 
the field in the Great War, "Break the News to Mother." 

He had sung but a few words when the man on the next post 
took it up; then the next post and the next, until down the full 
length of the cut-and-cover along the mountainside the eight 
sentries were singing under the stars. 

Isolation also figured as a physical factor. Even with the in- 
stallation of the telephone system, the man on post knew, his 
non-commissioned patrol knew, and his officers knew, that in 
the case of an attack in force it would be one against many. 
Sentries were usually allowed five rounds of ammunition per tour 
of duty, to be turned in at the expiration of the tour. Should an 
attack come in force those five shells would be expended before any 
help could arrive. This was often used as an argument for in- 
creasing the number of rounds per man, and on nights when 
alarms were insistent and well-founded along some sectors, com- 
pany commanders did allow a greater number of cartridges. But 
it was always certain to be one against heavy odds. 



i62 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

The distance of most of the posts from the barracks where 
the men were quartered, often more than a mile, was another 
handicap. This was especially true in winter. While, according 
to schedule, a man might be on actual guard duty four hours, 
storm conditions often added another hour to reaching the 
post and still another returning from it. He must be aroused 
a half hour before going out and he was certain to occupy a 
half hour checking in and getting to bed after returning. So 
the four hours were nearly doubled. This is conservative and 
does not take into consideration the more distant posts of 
the line. 

The man on post must contend not only with the unnatural 
enemy, but also with the natural ones, the elements. Often 
poorly clad, as was the case in the beginning, he must withstand 
frost, rain, wind, intense cold that often dropped to 20 below 
zero, and on one or two nights to 35 below zero, on the northern 
sectors; he must fight against the drowsiness that meant death 
on nights of cold and storm; he must stand exposed on the top 
of the cut-and-cover with never a screen nor sentry box to shield 
him during the terrific blizzards or sleet storms, and at the end 
of his tour plod through the snow back to cold barracks and a 
steamy atmosphere of wet clothes. On his next tour of duty (but 
three or four hours away if man power were short) he must rise, 
beat warmth and life into his numbed limbs, pull and tug at wet, 
stiffened shoes with unfeeling fingers, don damp clothes, and go 
again into the darkness, following a cup of broth or a more sub- 
stantial meal. Toiling through the snows to his post on the bare 
mountainside, he would become heated with the exercise, and 
finally on post might develop a chill as a result. Summer and 
winter his problem was to keep awake and warm. 

Back at the barracks on the following day was the police duty, 
the fatigue work, and perhaps barracks building to finish. Night 
brought only weariness too great to admit of a walk to town, 
and then at 12 o'clock the same old battle with sleep, the rising 
in the cold barracks, and the trudging out to post. Day after 
day, and night after night, he repeated and re-repeated this rou- 
tine. With little or no excitement on the line, visited by his 
non-commissioned ofl&cers and his officers at prescribed intervals, 
his eyes squinted with the constant peering into the darkness, 
his whole being melted into the work that brought to him no 
glory or honor. Such a man must necessarily be imbued with some- 
thing more than mere discipline. Not all the heroes died on the 
battle-fields of France. There were some who faced absolute 
torture of mind and body in the guarding of the World's Heart, 



THE LINE IMPREGNABLE 163 

because deep in them had been fired the sense of their duty to 
their country regardless of plaudit. 

This picture is not overdrawn. It is typical, and to prove 
it an incident referred to in the chronological chapter: 

One night when a terrific storm was swirling out of the Cats- 
kills the reliefs of Troop B men at the Bonticou barracks were 
obliged to wait minutes at a time before they could throw open 
the barracks doors and get into the white smother of the outside 
night. Once out, they were fairly blown back against, the side of 
the building by the terrific wind. That was the first night in 
the history of the sector when a post was uncovered; it was im- 
possible to reach the most distant of the culverts. That was the 
night when men relieved from duty struggled back through the 
storm, falling time and again, until they floundered against the 
barracks doors and were dragged in almost unconscious by their 
comrades. Had they been men of smaller soul stature, these 
officers and troopers of Albany, they might well have said, ''No 
one would be out for mischief to-night. Let's keep warm." But 
it was their sense of duty that took them out; the feeling of pride 
in their work and their appreciation of its importance that had 
been instilled in them by the Commanding Officer of the 
regiment. 

No pay, no discipline, nothing but spirit could have held men 
and officers to such a task, without glory, without irecognition 
and without praise. It was a cruel, strength-sapping service that 
took every ounce of a man's vitality and energy and at the last, 
if he were a weakling, flung him to one side, his best gone forever. 
But if he were a strong man, as most were, it gave him something 
forever — the joy that comes with the knowledge of conquest of 
the elemental. 

Such hardships, such battling with the elemental, such in- 
domitable determination of the men of the First Provisional in 
the face of such odds, appealed to the men from overseas who now 
and again visited the long line. 

While in this country as a member of the French Commission, 
Capt. Crancori Monore, of the French Field Artillery, a hero of 
Verdun and wearer of the Croix de Guerre, the British War 
Cross, the Decoration of the Legion of Honor, and other medals 
that told of his four years on the western front, made an inspection 
of the Line Impregnable in company with Capt. Howland Pell, 
the Disbursing Officer. And from Captain Monore there came an 
appreciation typical of those who saw the line through the eyes of 
experience. Characterizing the men of the First Provisional as 
the American Chasseurs, Captain Monore's letter is a revelation 



i64 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

of the attitude of one who had been through the Flanders hells 
toward a work that was by the uninformed often questioned as 
to importance. The letter follows: 

New York, November 8, 1918. 

My dear Captain Pell: 

I want to thank you so much for the interesting trip I 
made with 3^ou visiting the line of your N. Y. G. regiment. 

Since one year I am in your country I had many oppor- 
tunities of admiring the quality of your military spirit: 
the chance you gave to me the other day was one of the best. 

The military spirit, the "esprit de corps" is easy to real- 
ize under good chiefs, having their troop "bien en main" 
gathered in a single place. But to realize the same in a regi- 
ment occupying a line of more than 100 miles is certainly 
a very remarkable performance. Every soldier would speak 
the same language that I do. 

Such thing too can be easily realized during the war on 
the battlefield — but probably more difficult when your only 
duty is the passive, tiresome, without great glory guard 
duty. 

I should be very thankful to you and my dear Captain 
Pell, if with my gratitude for the kindness which was given 
to me by all the officers of your regiment, you could express 
to them, and particularly to Colonel Rose my very deep 
admiration for the work and result with regard to discipline 
and esprit de corps, I was fortunate enough to see with you 
the other day. 

Believe me, my dear Captain Pell, your very obedient 
servant. 

CRANCORi MoNORE. 

The Aqueduct squint was a distinctive mark of this service. 
From long hours of vigil in the darkness men who were on the 
line for a length of time developed a peculiar expression about the 
eyes, one which singled them out as veterans in a mixed group 
of veterans and recruits. To prove an argument on this subject, 
an officer on one occasion picked almost without error on the 
floor of a home station armory a dozen men that had seen Aque- 
duct service, although he did not know the men personally. 

From this brief analysis of the physical and psychological 
problems confronting the individual guardsman on Aqueduct 
work, something may be appreciated of the collective and de- 



THE LINE IMPREGNABLE 165 

tailed problem that confronted the Commanding Officer of the 
regiment with each fresh increment of new troops or replacements. 
These began to filter into the field after some of the original regi- 
ment were relieved in the fall of 1917. All sorts and conditions 
of human nature must be contended with in this work, and while 
a backbone of veterans was always maintained on practically 
every sector, there were times when the shifting of or release of 
entire units accentuated this problem sharply. Instruction, 
teaching and acclimation were constant tasks of the sector, bat- 
talion and regimental commanders. 

The Guard Card system (officially known in the plural pos- 
sessive) originated by Colonel Rose, met and covered most of the 
problems of continuous guard duty on all posts of the line, formed 
a check on every one, from the sentry to his commanding officer, 
and gave at the same time insurance to all. It was original with 
the First Provisional, military history chronicling nothing like 
it. It has been examined and passed upon by military men of all 
experiences and from all branches and they have been unanimous 
in characterizing it as the best answer to the task which fell upon 
the regiment. From first to last it is the unchangeable record 
of the work that was done and it stands as the second best possible 
answer as to whether or not the Aqueduct was guarded. The best 
is in the fact that at the conclusion of its service the First Pro- 
visional turned over an intact waterway to the City of New York, 
although two other great aqueducts in the country had been 
damaged by enemy aliens during the great war. 

Colonel Rose conceived the Guard Card system from the con- 
sideration of a street-car transfer in the autumn of 1917. He 
explained his idea to Major Hodges, who prepared a card design 
that was accepted by the Commanding Officer with few altera- 
tions. In its ultimate form the Guard Card appeared as shown 
on following page. 

For the purpose of illustration the card is filled out in both in« 
stances with the punch marks of the various inspecting officers 
appearing in the quarter-hours between 10 p.m. and 2 a.m. 

The Guard Cards were printed in great quantities, their use 
and purpose explained in G. O. 18 and in The Watchdog, the regi- 
mental newspaper, and they were then furnished in suitable 
quantities to the sectors of the line, together with punches, as 
follows : 

For Corporals C 

For Sergeants S 

For Lieutenants L 

For Sector C. O.'s X 



1 66 



H-A-L-TT !— WHA-ZAA ? 



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RY.a 



THE LINE IMPREGNABLE 167 

Before a relief was sent out the sergeant in charge of the guard 
prepared a card for each post to be covered. In some camps it 
was the habit of the relief to draw the cards for posts, thus in- 
suring just distribution of difficult or exposed positions. The 
man's name was then entered on the card, the card punched by 
the sergeant or non-commissioned officer posting the relief, and 
retained by the man until the expiration of his tour of duty. Each 
inspecting officer or non-commissioned officer punched the card 
at the time he passed the sentry's post, and in the blank space 
on the back of the card the sentry made note of any unusual 
circumstances or conditions arising on his post during his tour. 
At the end of the tour the completed card was punched again 
by the sergeant relieving, the actual time of relief (not the tour 
time) was noted on the back of the card, together with any com- 
ment by the non-commissioned officer to explain short or long 
hours, improper punching or other instance. Each day th^ cards 
were sorted, examined, checked and signed by the first sergeant. 
The signature of the lieutenant commanding and the commanding 
officer of the sector on the back of each card was the assurance 
of the individual officer to the battalion inspector, battalion 
commander and regimental commander that the record was 
accurate and true. 

At intervals of two weeks sector cards were sent into battalion 
headquarters, where battalion inspectors were made responsible 
for the checking of the work. Thence they were forwarded to 
Regimental Headquarters, where the Adjutant's office sorted them 
into sectors, months, days, posts and hours, and filed them. 
The sorting work developed experts in catching inconsistencies 
in the cards. On a fully sorted set of posts for each 24 hours the 
expert might trace the movements of each patrolling non-com- 
missioned officer and each inspecting officer from the time he 
left one end of the line until he arrived at the other end, or until 
his tour of duty ceased. Cards on which questions arose, which 
could not be explained by the cards themselves, were indicated 
by a metallic clip for future reference to the sector commander, 
and any great lapse of posts or time not otherwise explained was 
immediately called to the attention of sector commander by letter. 

It was Colonel Rose who developed the method of personal and 
individual instruction of the sentry in the matter of Guard Cards 
and their value to the man on post. Stopping in the darkness 
of the line, after the usual preliminaries, the commanding officer 
would invariably ask to see the sentry's card and then a dialogue 
something of this nature would ensue between the new man and 
the regimental commander. 



i68 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

C. O. : Do you know what this card is for? 

Sentry: Yes, sir, for the non-coms, to punch. 

CO.: That all? 

Sentry: Well, yes sir, I guess so. 

C. O. : Did it ever occur to you that this card is your insurance ^ 

Sentry: No, sir. 

C. O. : Well, it is. It is the thing that shows me whether or 
not you have done your duty, no matter what anybody says. 
It is the thing that carries your record as a soldier guarding the 
great artery of the heart of the world, this Aqueduct that means 
so much to the City of New York. It is your record — the record 
that you are making every day. Supposing you were to receive 
injuries or contract a disease through no fault of your own while 
in this work that a few years later from now would lay you up. 
You might ask for a pension. Instead of all the delay and proof 
necessary to establish your claim, the officers of this regiment 
could go directly to the Guard Cards and show that you were on 
duty on the day in question, that you performed your duty as a 
soldier faithfully and well, if that were the case. Does that 
card mean any more to you than it did before.? 

The answer was always, ''Yes, sir," best corroborated by the 
eager grip with which the man on post took back his record card. 

These lectures were varied in wording, but the idea was the 
same throughout. The man on post was cautioned to see that 
his rights were observed to the fullest in the handling of the card 
by the non-commissioned officers and encouraged to make a tran- 
scription of whatever notes he made on the card into his personal 
note-book. 

Sector commanders followed out this plan of the Commanding 
Officer after one night of the individual lecture work on their 
sectors. And the men had the full grasp of their cards only after 
they had been given these talks. 

The question immediately arises in the mind of the reader, 
''Could not these cards be beaten by collusion between the patrol- 
ling non-commissioned officer and the man on post.?" 

Of course. Human nature is human nature the world over, and 
in the beginning, while the sentry cards were the only check, and 
before the days of the post telephone, there were several instances 
where non-commissioned officers and sentries alike, looking for a 
little extra rest, played against their cards and the cards were 
punched two or three hours in advance. The probabilities are 
that this was done more or less throughout by new men, but the 
danger of an inspecting or staff officer dropping onto the line im- 
mediately after the advance punching was too great to make the 



THE LINE IMPREGNABLE 169 

practice healthy. There was no way to fill the holes in the card 
once they had been made, and the excuse of "punched by mis- 
take" could not get through when at 10 o'clock in the evening, for 
instance, an inspecting officer found a sentry's card punched every 
half-hour up to 12 o'clock midnight. Severe examples were made 
of the first offenders and the word gradually went abroad on the 
line that it was a dangerous matter to "stack the deck." 

It is doubtful whether any one outside of the sorting office 
and the staff will ever know the extent of the tell-tale stories 
that the sector cards brought into headquarters, all unwittingly. 
They reported more than guard duty, for there were certain 
very definite conditions of Guard Cards that were early identified 
with very definite conditions on particular sectors, and the indi- 
cators never failed. In most cases it was found inadvisable to 
refer to the sectors on this phase, and conditions really indicated 
by the Guard Cards were apparently uncovered in some other way. 

In the final days of the regiment's existence all Guard Cards, 
sorted by commands, years, months, days and posts were delivered 
to the office of the Adjutant-General of the State, where they 
stand to-day as the indisputable record of what the regiment did, 
hour by hour of its existence. 

The work of giving an Aqueduct polish to the technique of 
interior guard duty was a task on which Colonel Rose early em- 
barked and which he urged upon his sector commanders. Take 
from any New York regiment to-day a dozen men and place them 
on a dozen culverts or other vulnerable points along the Aqueduct 
at night. And the First Provisional officer, knowing nothing of 
their names or former service, can tell you whether or not they 
were First Provisional men by the way they do their work. 

Aqueduct technique bore the same relation to ordinary interior 
guard duty that the motions of a highly trained boxer bear to 
those of the man who merely knows the rudiments. The First 
Provisional challenge — the intensive challenge, was in itself a work 
of art. No formal, curt "Halt! Who's there.?" for the men of 
the water line, but a snarling, vicious, threatening "Ha-a-a-ltt!" 
with a quick hiss and suck of breath at the end, and then, after a 
moment of concentrated and contrasted utter silence, the sharp 
question that admitted of no evasion, "Wha-zzaa.?" repeated 
once, if need be. It is almost impossible to convey the sound in 
the written word. 

And if there were no answer from the lurking shadow in the 
bushes or the crash on the side-hill, there shot through the night 
a warning, to the metallic sinister click of a breech in action, 
"Answer or I'll fire!" 



I70 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

In the meantime the sentry had effaced himself from view, 
using the bank of the cut and cover, the shadow of a bush or 
bank, or the camouflaging dark spot of grass on the open cut and 
cover to conceal himself, watching his flanks critically. He was 
taught never to appear against the sky-line. Since, as the cut 
and cover, for the most part, ran high above the surrounding 
terrain, on one side at least, this made necessary intimate knowl- 
edge of every post to which he might be assigned. 

By various hypothetical instances he was taught what number 
might be advanced with safety for the purposes of recognition, 
and how the remainder of the party might be handled. All 
this, he was shown, depended on the circumstances of the post, 
the hour and the weather, and he was constantly encouraged to 
work out problems along this line for himself. 

More than this, it was instilled into his mind from the beginning 
that a uniform was no insurance, whether it were the uniform of 
a private or a brigadier-general. Any one, he was shown, could 
buy a uniform, and any one could forge cards, passes and docu- 
ments. As a result the sentry must be sure of his own recogni- 
tion, that of the patrolling non-commissioned officer or his com- 
manding officer before he could advance any one through his 
lines. If he could not advance he arrested. 

Since all things were subservient to the regiment's mission, that 
of guarding the line, the sentry received this intensive training 
throughout his entire period of service. It resulted in some queer 
incidents, none funnier than the challenge of a "greenie'' in the 
early days of the Hudson Company on the line. Captain Benedict 
Giff"ord was inspecting his line when he was challenged near 
Culvert 96 on a black, black night. 

*' Captain Giff'ord and party," he answered. 

"Advance, Captain Giff'ord, to be recognized. Halt! Recog- 
nized. Advance, Captain Giff'ord. Advance, party. Halt! I 
don't know you." (Turning to Captain Giff'ord), "Will you vouch 
for this party?" 

"I will," said the Captain. 

"All right," said the sentry, "vouch!" 

Another gem came from Captain Gibbs' line, where a man lost 
to grand opera chorus for Aqueduct service was being instructed in 
the rudiments of guard duty. Of foreign birth, he had a hard time 
with it, his customary salutation being, "Halt-who-there-a'vance!" 

"Oh, sing it out!" said the sergeant, impatiently. ''Sing it 
out! Say, Ha-altt! Give 'em time! Sing it out!" 

And on the return trip the sergeant was stopped by a sweet, 
musical trill from the darkness that went something like this: 



Croton Lake, T.Y. 
Colonel J. 3. Rose, 1st Infantry 
Lieut-Col. W.L. Burnett, laajcr, 1st Inf. 
Gapt. T.K. Hutton, 1st Infantry 
Cept. Holland Pell, 12th Infantry 

32 - 40' 







/ 




SUPPLY 
MILLTOOD, 


COMPiJTY 

H. Y. 




Capt. 

Cept. 

2nd I 


L. B. BeGsrmo, 14th Inf. 
E. Soherman, let Inf. 
t. E. H. Miller, 14th Inf. 




26 


- 30 





1st BATTAIIOH 
Croton lake, K. 



Capt» T.T. Lane, 9th C.i.C. 
Ist Lt. -J. Towner, 1st Inf. 



\ 


ISDICAl OFFICERS 

Major C. S. To^mBend, 1st Inf. 
Zajor C. A. Clinton, 9th C.A.C. 
Capt. E. C. T7aterbury, let Inf. 
1st Lt. J. R. KorgaoQ, 3ra Inf. 



Major C.J. Lamb, 10th Inf. 
Capt. G.B. Snonden, 10th Inf. 
1st Lt. C.L. Bechtol, 1st Inf. 



Capt. L.C. Harte, 3rd Inf. 
1st Lt. L.W. May, 7th Inf. 
2nd Lt. ~A.E. lord, 10th Inf. 



August 4^^ I^IQ- 




HEADQUARTERS 
SECOND BATIALION 

N.v»F.xHr,New\5rK. 






CQMKAHYQ. 
VUk, M -Y. 



COMPANY O 



-106 






MACHINE OUN CO. 



Irjcluded ](? T^ginpetyta] Headc^yewters KgPOflr. 



HEADQUAKJER5 
V»li>»lU, lic^YorK 



COMPANY 1 hj-^a 
EIrr,rfo>-i,M "Via- 36 

I 



COMPANY L 



CO>lK4NYr-I 



5cryi. H^tTuHon A Surtaj-t 



Showing Regimental Organization and the Distribution 
Troops During the Summer of 1918, with the Vul- 
nerable Points Covered on the Various 
Sectors 



of 



In connection with these tables refer to maps in pockets of the covers 
of this volume. First figures show authorized strength. Second figures 
actual strength. 



Second Battalion 



COliPAlTY E - SECTOR JI-1 
5 MILES 
HE;'J)iU^HTEHS, TONGORE ROJJ). 
OIIVE BRIDGE 

Captain E. J. Muller. 69th Inf. 

47 - 56_ 

SOUTH XOEGORE SIPHOK 
12 CULVERTS 
3 SIPHOK HOUSES 




Atwood Outpost, Tongore Road 
ist Lt. J. F. Keefe, 69th Inf. 
2nd Lt. P. J. Bradley. 59th Inf. 

57 - JZiL 




17 Culverts 

















COMPAirr H - SECTOR U-2 
HEADQUARTERS, CAMP PEAK 
Main Road Stone Ridge to PeeOc. 

10 MUSS 
CatJtain C.A. Hinman, 4th Inf. 
1st Lt.'A.B. Suttle, 4th Inf. 

40 - 58 

11 CULVERTS 
1 GATE HOUSE 

1 SHAFT HOUSE 

2 1L6J3HOLES 




OutpoBt Shaft 5, Roundout Pressure 
Tunnel, near Hi^falls. 

5-6 




1 Shaft House 






Outpost Shaft 8, Bontioou Tunnel, 
Mt. Rest Road, Highfalls. 

5.-6 


1 Shaft Oouae 













COfffAmr F - SECTOR H-3 
4 MILES 
HEADeUARTERS. CAMP DECKER 
IKTERSECTION MT. REST RD. & AQP. 
HEW PALTZ 

Captain E.M. Decker, let Inf. 

30-44 

11 CULVERTS 
1 MANHOLE 




Outpoet Wallklll Pressure Tunnel 

3 Miles from Hew Paltz 
let Lt. 3.W. Richards, 10th Inf. 

12 - 37 




8 Culverts 
1 Shaft House 

















COMPANY G - SBC TOR H-4&5 
12 MILES 

HEADQUARTERS, CAMP GIBBS 
OK AQDCT. BET. CULVERTS 69 & 70 
3 Miles from Gardiner 

Captain E. C. Gibbs, 8th C.A.C. 

30 - 46 

1 SHAFT 

1. GAGIBG CHiiLtBSR 
1 GATE HOUSE 
5 CULVERTS 



Camp Girdner, Culvert 76, Acqd. 
2nd Lt. C.L, Girdner. 8th C.A.C. 

26 - 42 


7 Culvert? 

1 


Outpost Sherwood Corners, Inter- 
section llewhurgh & Wallkill Rd. on Acqd. 
1st Lt. T. W. Thirkildsen, 1st Inf.,. 

22 - 42 


6 Culverts 
1 float Hole 


Outpost Shaft 3. Wallkill Pressure Tunnel. 
Gardner 

3-5 




1 Sheft House 
1 


Outpost St. Andrews, Culvert 68. 
Ist Lt. C. Higgs, 8th C.A.C. 

25 - 34 




5 Culverts 
1 lianhole 



MACHINE GUH COIfPAHY - SECTOR K-6 
HEADQUARTERS, blAIM ROAD LITTLE BRITAIN 
TURBPIKE & AQUEDUCT 
8 MILE3 

Captain C. Pieroe, 23rd Infantry^ 

44-34 

5 CULVERTS 

1 SIPHOH HOUSE 




Outpost Cochocton Turnpike, 
Turnpike & Aqud. State Rd. 

2nd Lt. R.C. Launt, 1st Inf. 

35 - 38 




7 Culverts 
1 Manhole 






Outpost Vales Gate, Moodna 
Pressure Txumel , ITeviburgh. 

13 - 14 




2 Culvei-ts 

1 Siphon House 

1 Shaft House 





THE LINE IMPREGNABLE 171 

"Tra-la-la-la-la-la-la-la — Halt!" The Italian boy had sung 
out the best he knew how. 



The Lieut.-Colonel, touring the line one night, ran into a casual 
one. After the usual formalities with a new sentry, he turned to 
go on. "Well, good night," was the sentry's comment. "Glad 
you stopped!" 



And in another case a sentry crawling from the bushes beside 
the Aqueduct, where he had been making ready for slaughter, 
remarked with something of relief in his voice to a battalion 
commander: "Hell! I'm glad to see you. I thought it was some 
German blank of a blank!" 



Subjective basis was necessary to secure desired objective. 
In other words, the man on post must appreciate the importance 
of his position and the thing he was guarding before he could 
become the ideal Aqueduct sentry. No amount of verbal in- 
struction could teach the men of the First Provisional to epitomize 
the state militant in their very challenges, to crouch tense with 
bayonets ready for the approach to the final recognition, even 
though they were almost certain it was the corporal of the guard. 
No spoken word could tell them of the dangers of their post until 
they had looked into the eye of the spitting red streak on the 
hillside above them and heard the bullet whine overhead, or until 
they had been drenched to their knees in the midnight beating 
of brush and thicket for the pot-shooting prowler on the line. 
Until the Spirit of the Line spoke to a man, he was without the 
accolade of the veteran, tense readiness, crouched for the spring. 

Hand in hand with the super-guard standard, and the Guard 
Card, went the post telephone system, part of the original promise 
of the City of New York. Although it was a settled thing in 
August of 1917 that the First Provisional should have a telephone 
system connecting every post, outpost and company post to 
battalion and Regimental Headquarters, it was not until April, 
1918, that the regimental telephone system became an established 
fact. The appropriation had been secured late in the previous 
fall and throughout the late fall and winter the long line of poles 
and wires had risen from Hillview to Ashokan, reaching into every 
outpost of the regiment. Wherever vulnerability of the Aque- 
duct threatened the water supply of the City of New York (and 
that meant the counter-threat of a soldier and a bayonet) there 
appeared on the telephone- or electric-light pole above the culvert 
or beside the siphon, the green, weather-proofed box. 
12 



172 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

The system was designed and brought to consummation under 
Major W. L. Hodges, construction officer and in command of the 
1st Battalion. The various posts of each company outpost 
were connected to the outpost headquarters, and outposts were 
in turn connected to company or sector headquarters. Sector 
or company headquarters could be reached or could reach direct 
to battalion headquarters. From the three battalions three 
trunks ran direct to the regimental switchboard at Croton Lake. 
And to insure against accidental or intentional damage to mili- 
tary telephone lines, each company was also connected to the 
local central, so that two routes of communication between regi- 
mental, battalion and company headquarters were always open. 
When Colonel Rose talked with the most northern point on 
the line, for instance, he called 2nd Battalion headquarters, asking 
for connection to Olive Bridge. The operator at Olive Bridge 
barracks then connected him with the Tongore siphon post and 
the Commanding Officer could learn from the individual sentry 
the exact time of his last inspection and the condition of the 
weather. 

But, of course, the big use and the real use of the telephone 
system was its value to the man on post. In the event of a dis- 
turbance or trouble of any kind on his post, a mere word into the 
receiver, following a ring, was sufficient to send the corporal of the 
guard and a patrol scurrying down the cut-and-cover to the aid 
of the sentry. And the knowledge that there was always help 
within call made the mental attitude of the guard more certain. 

The installation of the telephone system made necessary some 
change in ordinary arrangement of the guard. A non-commis- 
sioned officer was required to be constantly on duty at the tele- 
phone and this usually fell to one of the non-commissioned officers 
of the guard. Battalion methods of reporting and checking by 
telephone differed, but in all cases men were required to report 
frequently by wire. On some sectors the custom prevailed of 
requiring sentries to give their general orders by number at the 
time of telephone report. The sergeant on the telephone board 
would call, ''Number Four!" and from the sentry would come, 
"Here!" 

"Give your sixth general order!" 

"To receive, obey and pass on — " etc. The general orders 
were pasted in the telephone boxes, but few of the men 
read them for any length of time. Constant repetition taught 
them word for word. 

The sentry was taught when handling a capture to keep be- 
tween his prisoner and the telephone box, and under no con- 



THE LINE IMPREGNABLE 173 

sideration to turn his back to his prisoner while telephoning. 
He was also cautioned against allowing the door of his telephone 
box to shut off the view on one side of his post while he was in 
the act of reporting. 

Now it should not be understood that the telephone system 
eliminated personal inspection by officers and non-commissioned 
officers. Rather it augmented this inspection because it made 
for total supervision almost constant. And total supervision was 
the only answer to 1,500 men of rapidly changing personnel on 
no miles of vulnerability that meant so much to the State and the 
nation. 

Like the Guard Card, the telephone system had its disadvan- 
tages as well as its advantages, one being inter-post chatter, 
hard to stop, and the other inter-post information as to the 
whereabouts of a patrolling non-commissioned officer, inspecting 
officer or sector officer. Not only was this inter-post. In some 
cases it was inter-company, it being considered the friendly thing 
for the sergeant at B to tip the sergeant at D to the fact that 
the ''Old Man'' was "raisin' hell and headin' sout'." And many 
and many a time the word has run down the listening boxes, 
"Look out for the Louie. He's coming down." It was hard to 
catch this sort of thing, but officers found that intermittent and 
scattered hitting of the line was the best solution. Captain Lord, 
while inspector of the 3rd Battalion, made a habit of jumping 
from sector to sector with such irregularity that there was little 
to indicate where he would appear next, and information trans- 
mitted from the post of his last appearance to the rest of the 
posts on the sector had the effect of tightening that line while 
he was scouting on another one. 

When the shortage of man power left some of the telephone 
boxes uncovered it was suggested that by the impersonation of a 
non-commissioned officer or a member of the guard some enemy 
might, over the telephone, use a favorable time for giving from 
an uncovered box on a patrol post, orders or a call, that would 
result in stripping two or three posts of guards long enough to 
effect damage. A night test for this was made on the Company 
H line. 

Learning the names of the men on post by listening in as the 
opportunity afforded at momentarily uncovered boxes, while the 
sentries covering more than one point were near another box, the 
staff officer selected for the work secured the necessary informa- 
tion as to post numbers, those who occupied them and the where- 
abouts of the patrolling non-commissioned officer. Selecting a 
post covering three vulnerable points, he waited until the sentry 



174 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

was at the other end of his beat and then sent a call along the 
line from the uncovered box. The man on the next post answered. 

"This is the sergeant talking/* said the officer. "Pick up 
Blank and Blank and go down to 'Seven.' There's trouble 
there. Hurry!" 

Seven was a quarter of a mile away. This would have stripped 
at least four vulnerable points for a period of 15 or 20 minutes. 
The staff officer waited a moment and then hung up the receiver 
softly. Suddenly the bell tinkled sharply and he listened in. 
It was the voice of the sergeant at headquarters. 

"I want all of you men out there to repeat your fourth general 
order." 

And one after another they came from along the line: 

"To quit my post only when properly relieved." 

To the power of the rifle had been added the power of instant 
communication with reserves. The guard trinity was com- 
plete: Sentry Cards, Super-guard Consciousness and the Post 
Telephone. 

To hold this triangle intact, only supervision was necessary 
following establishment. That supervision by the non-commis- 
sioned officer, constantly on the move; by the commissioned officer 
during the night hours and as much as possible in the day; by 
the battalion inspector night and day; by the battalion commander; 
by the regimental staflF and by the Commanding Officer — kept the 
line alive, intense, strong, and dominant. It placed guard duty 
on a pedestal and taught the gospel of the ever-vigilant sentry. 
It was the thing that made the Line Impregnable and called forth 
the comment of Inspector Underbill of the New York Police 
Department, Division of National Defense, at the close of the 
war in his letter to Colonel Rose: 

"Great credit is due you for the delivery of this property 
(the Aqueduct) to the proper authorities with no reports, 
so far as I can learn, stating that you were compelled to 
report that damage had occurred to any part of such sys- 
tem while under your care." 

With sectors embracing often as much as 20 miles, it was 
necessary to have transportation in order to make this super- 
vision and inspection possible. How great the volume of such 
transportation work was is shown in the very work itself. A 
sector provided with but one car must have its car going night 
and day — night for inspection and day for the posting of its more 



THE LINE IMPREGNABLE 175 

distant guards and the delivery of subsistence to outposts. What 
the breaking down of the car meant on such a sector may be readily 
appreciated. Commanding officers of the First Provisional's 
units spent much more of their own personal money than any 
other service could have justified in the hire of necessary trans- 
portation, for which they never claimed or received reimbursement. 

The work of the battalion inspectors was of course impossible 
without automobiles, and in many instances the battalion in- 
spectors were obliged to depend on privately owned cars for their 
day work, and on the hard-run cars of other officers for their 
night inspections. How important it was to keep the battalion 
inspector going may be gathered from the sample reports ap- 
pearing in Appendix III, which shows the way in which the regi- 
mental commander was constantly kept in touch with the line 
and its detailed needs. 

During the winter of 1917-18, when drifts made the roads on 
many sectors impassable for days at a time, horse-drawn cutters, 
mounts, snow-shoes and skiis were used by unit commanders for 
inspection work, according to terrain or the individual ability 
of the officers. But the inspections were made and the line held 
from beginning to end, regardless of weather. 

It was Colonel Rose's attitude and method that made the line 
what it was. "I don't mind finding an officer in bed at nine 
o'clock in the morning," he often said, "but he wants to look out 
if I get him there during the night. You officers stay on the 
line at night and sleep in the daytime — if you really feel you've 
got to have sleep." 

And the Commanding Officer set the example himself with 
twenty-hour stretches of inspection and instruction that kept the 
staff officers on duty with him reeling in an effort to hold the 
terrific pace. During tight times on the line he maintained a 
stride of supervision that astonished his younger associates and 
put them to their best to make even an appearance of holding 
their own. 

When the line slumped, as it did now and then, when many 
new men and the general perversity of affairs brought the guard 
duty below the standard set by Colonel Rose for the First Pro- 
visional, that was the time when those who knew began to watch 
for fireworks. 

And they were never disappointed. On one occasion the Com- 
manding Officer and the Lieut.-Colonel captured the rifles of a 
knot of growling sentries who sat about an open fire with their 
posts uncovered and grouching their luck. Then the men were 
held up by the officers and marched into their headquarters under 



176 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

arrest. Line raids were frequent, and at the risk of being shot 
by an over-zealous sentry, the various officers of the regiment, 
but the Colonel most of all, tested and tapped the line, sneaked 
up on sentries, stole in and out of camps, and kept the line of an 
entire sector in a constant buzz of excitement, sometimes all 
night. None of these things were for the purpose of holding any 
man or sector to derision, but of teaching by new situations and 
new problems the best methods of meeting attack. 

On another occasion Colonel Rose, single-handed, rolled up five 
posts of a first-night line and taught the sentries there a lesson 
they never forgot. They were green men when they began the 
night's work, but they were far from green when they finished. 
Wherever there were new troops on the line the intensive tapping 
and testing was done by headquarters, mainly for the purpose of 
keeping the line tense and lively until the initial danger from the 
all-knowing enemy alien should be over and the men steadied to 
their guard work. 

In the fall of 1918, Colonel Rose employed Sergeant Red Leaf, 
a full-blooded Pueblo Indian and graduate of Carlisle University, 
attached to the Scribner's Farm post of Company D, for special 
scout-work on the line. Red Leaf was a sentry-jumper of the 
nth power and his natural ability to dissolve into a background 
made him much feared and cordially hated by the men on whose 
sectors he was used. But when he had slipped by a few sentries 
and had stolen up on one or two, he was invariably put to work 
elsewhere to prevent bad blood. 

This brings up an incident that happened on the Company E 
line and in which Red Leaf played a star part. The Indian had 
been sent ahead of the party, comprising the Commanding Officer, 
the sector commander and the Adjutant. It was night, and down 
the cut-and-cover a ways the party met Sergt. Walter Kiernan 
with his Airedale patrol, told of in another chapter. The sentry 
on the next post challenged some one in the bushes and there was 
no reply. 

"Wha-zaaa.?" roared the sentry. 

"Go on down. Patsy," said Kiernan. And one of the big 
Airedales trotted into the brush, from which there was no answer 
to the sentry's call. 

Kiernan called warning to the sentry against shooting the dog. 
Again came the challenge in the dark, "Wha-zaaa.?" 

Just about this time Patsy located Red Leaf. Only the familiar 
barracks smell stopped the charge, but the idea of even a soldier 
in the bushes did not appeal to the dog. He growled a deep- 
throated inquiry in support of the sentry's question. 



THE LINE IMPREGNABLE 177 

*'Me — friend!" announced Red Leaf, getting up abruptly. 
"Please call the dog." He was willing to take a chance with the 
bullet, but not with the "Man-killer." 

It was not the interior problems of maintaining the Impregnable 
Line, but the problems from without, that gave the Command- 
ing Officer and the other officers of the First Provisional Regi- 
ment their hardest work. On superior authority and co-opera- 
tion and support from the home stations of the units from which 
its men were drawn, the regiment naturally counted for aid. 
Frankly, it never received the latter in full and never the former 
until Lieut.-Colonel Edward J. Westcott became the Acting Adju- 
tant-General. The attitude of the sources to which the troops 
in the field would normally look for strength and support was 
one of indifference, due for the greater part to lack of appre- 
ciation and understanding. 

To prove that it was lack of knowledge of the work and its 
problems, rather than anything else, that was responsible for the 
home-station attitude, one needs but to observe the constantly re- 
iterated, "I had no idea of the magnitude of your work," found 
in the letters of scores of visitors to the line. The very nature 
of the work forbade publicity, although Colonel Rose had three 
newspaper men on his staff who would have liked nothing better 
than to "cut loose" on the subject of the Job. The guardianship 
of the Aqueduct could have easily been made a popularized affair, 
but this would have been to invite the destruction of the vital 
artery that had been intrusted to the regiment's keeping. As a 
result, publicity was frowned on, and little was known of the 
First Provisional and its workings. 

When persons once knew of the work from their own observa- 
tion they appreciated it and gave it their support, as is shown 
in the case of the Aqueduct Citizens' Committee, comprised of 
persons living along the line and familiar with the line and its 
conditions. Lack of knowledge made for indifference, or in some 
cases antagonism engendered by inability to understand why 
things were needed for the work. It was this that made it nec- 
essary for Colonel Rose to fight in every direction to maintain 
his guard line. It was this that multiplied the odds against the 
regiment from the beginning. 

Some of these odds, those from within, have been discussed. 
What were those from without.? Facts, not criticism here, if you 
please, and only bare facts. They are sufficient for complete 
appreciation. 

First, the inability of the City of New York to understand 
that under the Military Law the Commanding Officer of the 



178 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

regiment was the sole judge of what was necessary, responsible 
only to the Adjutant-General or Brigade Commander in the 
matter of authority. 

Second, the inability of the City of New York to appreciate 
that the guarding of the Aqueduct was not a civil matter, and 
that, once having passed to military hands, the military authorities, 
under the orders which brought them into the field, became 
responsible for the guardianship to State and nation until they 
were relieved. 

This is best illustrated by what is commonly known as the 
Brush Incident, growing out of a report by the Acting Chief 
Engineer of the Department of Water Supply, Gas & Electricity, 
which would have resulted in the stripping of the line at the time 
of the nation's most critical period in its underground war with 
hyphenated sympathizers. 

On Jan. 14th, the Acting Chief Engineer of the Department 
of Water Supply, Gas & Electricity of the City of New York 
presented to Commissioner Nicholas J. Hayes, Commissioner of 
Water Supply, Gas & Electricity, a recommendation which called 
for the reduction of the guard on the Aqueduct to 372 men. It 
was from the standpoint of the professional civilian and was 
earnestly and honestly meant, though in ignorance of the vital 
things of which the military authorities were cognizant. Had it 
been adopted, there is no doubt that hell would have raged in 
New York within a month. The recommendation, which should 
be noted carefully in its totality, was as follows: 

Hon. Nicholas J. Hayes, 

Commissioner. 
Dear Sir: 

In compliance with your verbal instructions, I report 
herewith on the special guarding of the water supply 
system outside of the limits of the City of New York. 

Upon the breaking ofF of diplomatic relations with Ger- 
many, in February, 1917, then Mayor Mitchel called 
upon Governor Whitman to furnish a military guard for 
the water works outside of the city limits. Governor Whit- 
man assigned between 3,000 and 4,000 of the militia to 
this work, and a guard was placed on the Catskill system 
from a point a short distance below the Ashokan reservoir 
to the down-take chamber at Hillview reservoir, just 
north of the City line, and also on certain portions of the 
Croton system, and on the Long Island system. When 
this force was called into the Federal service early in August, 



THE LINE IMPREGNABLE 179 

the guard on the Brooklyn system was discontinued. At 
that time the former guard on the Catskill and Croton 
system was replaced by a new miHtia unit, known as the 
First Provisional Regiment, New York Guard, which has 
been under the command of Col. John B. Rose and has 
a strength of approximately 1,500 men. 

Under the law, the City of New York is required to pay 
the salaries of the men, their sustenance, housing, trans- 
portation, and all other expenses connected with their 
employment on the Aqueduct line. Over $25,000 has 
already been paid for the purchase of automobiles for the 
use of the militia, housing is being furnished at a cost esti- 
mated, I believe, of over $50,000. There is also a telephone 
system about to be installed at a cost of some $30,000; 
a lighting system at a cost of some $130,000; and gratings 
to screen off culverts at a cost of some $7,000. The daily 
cost of the present guard is approximately ^5,000 and 
absorbs a man power of at least 1,500 men. If the safety 
of the water supply of New York City demands such a 
guard, the cost becomes a secondary consideration. If, 
however, the continuity of the water supply can be reason- 
ably assured by a curtailment of the force employed, such 
reduction in force should be made, both to reduce the 
cost to the taxpayers of New York City and to release 
man power that is urgently needed in the war and other 
activities in which our country is now engaged. 

Diplomatic relations were severed with Germany nearly 
a year ago. Since then an opportunity has been afforded 
to judge the attitude of enemy aliens who are in this coun- 
try, and those who are liable to plot against our welfare 
and threaten the destruction of our public works have 
been largely located and placed under observation or control. 
It is to-day generally recognized that there is less necessity 
for closely guarding transportation lines, water supply sys- 
tems, and similar engineering works, than existed at and 
immediately after the severance of diplomatic relations. 

The City of New York is at the present time utilizing 
to its full capacity the Catskill water supply system. It 
is utilizing to approximately one-half its capacity the 
Croton water supply system. The Long Island and Rich- 
mond systems have been placed in reserve. If those por- 
tions of the Catskill and Croton system which are vital 
for continuous service are guarded, the interests of the 
citizens will be protected and the financial burden reduced. 



1 80 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

The Catskill water supply system has been so planned 
and constructed that provision has been made whereby 
a large volume of water is stored in Kensico Lake, ap- 
proximately 12 miles north of the city line. This supply 
is sufficient to meet the consumption of Catskill water 
for a period of not over 60 days. There may, therefore, 
be an interruption of flow through the 80 odd miles of 
Aqueduct north of Kensico, for a period of about two 
months, without stopping the supply of Catskill water 
to the city. It is evident that it would be reasonable to 
apply a far less intensive guarding scheme to the Aqueduct 
north of Kensico than south of Kensico. In the Croton 
water supply system, if the main Croton dam and the 
Aqueduct at Pocantico, Gould's Swamp, Ardsley and 
Dunwoodie, be guarded, the remaining portions of the 
system outside of the city limits are so located or of such 
a character that there is little opportunity for malicious 
interference with the continuity of the Croton supply. 
Under the above conditions a change in the guarding 
scheme now in force should, in my opinion, be made. I 
will therefore outline the present system and that pro- 
posed. 

Present Guard and Patrol System 

At the present time an elaborate guard and patrol sys- 
tem has been installed by the militia, fixed posts being 
maintained at a great many shafts, culverts and other 
structures along the 92 miles of Catskill Aqueduct, and 
at the Kensico and Hillview reservoirs. The men are 
assigned on the theory that every portion of the system 
must be continuously under observation, and that a force 
must be available for prompt mobilization in case an 
effort is made by a large number of men to attempt to 
destroy any portion of the Catskill system. A compara- 
tively small force of militia is assigned to guard a few 
points on the Croton system. The Board of Water Sup- 
ply poHce have undertaken the guarding of the Catskill 
works at Ashokan reservoir, and a short section of Aque- 
duct just below the reservoir. The following briefly sets 
forth the structures guarded and the force maintained: 

Catskill works: 

Ashokan reservoir head-works and one and one-half 
miles of Catskill Aqueduct below the screen chamber: — 



THE LINE IMPREGNABLE i 

The Board of Water Supply police maintain the guard 
for this section. The structures covered and the number 
of men assigned are usually as follows, one man being 
assigned at each of the points mentioned: 

Upper gate chamber. 

Olive Bridge dam and screen chamber. 

Venturi meter in near-by culvert. 

North and south chambers Esopus siphon, and 

North chamber Tongore siphon. 

This makes a total of from seven to eight fixed posts, 
and for 4 hours requires about 25 men. 

Catskill Aqueduct from a point one and one-half miles 
below the Ashokan screen chamber to down-take chamber 
at Hillview reservoir, including also Kensico reservoir: — 
This portion of the Catskill works is guarded by the militia, 
nearly 1,500 men being assigned to guard and patrol duty. 

Croton system: 

The militia are guarding the Croton dam, Croton gate- 
house and New Croton Aqueduct at Shaft No. 9 (Pocan- 
tico). Shaft No. 14 (Ardsley) and Shaft No. 18 (Dunwoodie). 
The number of men assigned is about 40. 

Outline of Proposed Guard and Patrol 

The proposed guard and patrol system is based on the 
assumption that: — For the Catskill system north of Kensico 
reservoir only a few points need be under constant obser- 
vation; that from Kensico reservoir to the City Line the 
Catskill system requires continuous guard and patrol; 
and that the Croton system requires similar protection for 
a few vital points. On this basis the following is proposed: 

Catskill system: 

Olive Bridge dam, Ashokan head-works: — Gates to be 
placed on the roadway at each end of the dam. Lights to 
be placed to illuminate the roadway and upstream and 
downstream faces of the dam. Access to the interior of 
the dam to be prevented by concreting all but one open- 
ing, located near toe of downstream face. Two men to 
be assigned to the day shift and three on each night shift. 
The men on the night shift to alternately, at hourly in- 
tervals, visit the upper gate chamber and the screen 
chamber. Lights to be placed at these structures. En- 



i82 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

trance to the underground works by means of the waste 
channel to be prevented by an iron screen. Board of 
Water Supply police are now available for this work. 
Required force, 9 men (including supervision). 

Rondout pressure tunnel, Walkill pressure tunnel, 
Mooda, Hudson-Breakneck pressure tunnel, Hudson River 
drainage shaft and blow-ofF, Croton Lake pressure tunnel: — 
At both the downtake and uptake shafts of the pressure 
tunnels mentioned, and at the Hudson River drainage 
shaft and blow-ofF, fixed posts to be established and guards 
to be maintained day and night, with the exception of 
the day period at the Breakneck uptake shaft. Militia 
to be assigned to these posts. Required force on a militia 
basis, 75 men. 

Catskill Aqueduct patrol between Ashokan reservoir 
and Bull Hill tunnel, just east of the Hudson River cross- 
ing: — In this stretch there are the Walkill and the Rondout 
pressure tunnel drainage chambers, and about 30 miles 
of Aqueduct to be patrolled. One man would be required 
for each of the pressure tunnel drainage chambers and 
also one man for the one mile of Aqueduct on the east 
side of the Hudson River, as this section is isolated and 
cannot, therefore, be included in any other patrol. The 
remaining 29 miles of Aqueduct to be patrolled can be 
examined at the beginning and end of the day, by having 
eleven men assigned to the work. Heavy iron gratings 
are to be installed over entrances to all culverts, passing 
under the Aqueduct, which are not otherwise protected, thus 
making it difficult to utilize these culverts as a means of 
injuring the structure through the placing and setting off 
of explosives under the Aqueduct. Required force, 14 men. 

Catskill Aqueduct patrol between Bull Hill tunnel and 
influent chamber at Kensico reservoir: — ^There are about 
23 miles of Aqueduct to be patrolled, and all points are 
to be examined at the beginning and at the end of the day. 
Gratings are to be provided on this section on all culverts. 
Required force, 10 men. 

Kensico reservoir: 

Kensico dam: — Gates to be placed at each end of the dam, 
the up and downsteam face of the dam to be lighted, all 
but one opening to the interior of the dam to be closed by 
masonry, two men to be on guard at all times during the 
daylight hours and three during the night hours. 



THE LINE IMPREGNABLE 183 

Kensico upper effluent chamber: 
Fixed militia post. 

Kensico lower effluent chamber: 

Two department employees, one to be assigned to each 
of the two night shifts. 

Kensico screen chamber: 

Two department employees, one to be assigned to each 
of the two night shifts. 

Required force, 22 men. 

Catskill Aqueduct, from Kensico screen chamber to 
Hillview efflux and downtake chamber: — For this portion 
of the system a military guard to be maintained with fixed 
posts at those points where damage might readily be 
caused by those so disposed and suitable military patrol 
for the remainder of the Aqueduct. A lighting system 
should be installed for this portion of the Aqueduct, the 
lights being of sufficient number and so located as to illumi- 
nate the entire line to be guarded. Gratings are to be pro- 
vided for the protection of culverts. Required force on 
a militia basis, 286 men. 

Croton system: 

Croton dam: — Gates have been placed at each end of 
the Croton dam, the up and downstream faces of the dam 
have been lighted by electricity, and the dam is guarded 
by the militia. It is proposed to continue the present 
system of guarding. Required force, 9 men. 

Croton gate-house: 

At present there are two department employees on duty 
in this gate-house on the day shift, and one on each of the 
two night shifts. There is also a military guard, one man 
being continuously on duty. It is proposed to have two ad- 
ditional men employed by the department, to provide two 
employees for each of the two night shifts, and dispense 
with the military guard. Required force, 2 men. 

New Croton Aqueduct: 

This Aqueduct is almost wholly in a deep tunnel, and 
until last year open shafts at intervals of about a mile ex- 
tended from the surface of the ground to the tunnel. Heavy 
concrete covers have been placed to close these shafts. 



1 84 



H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 



The guarding of this Aqueduct can be limited to the four 
locations where the Aqueduct is comparatively near the 
surface and might be damaged by those so disposed. Fixed 
posts should, therefore, be maintained at these points, 
which are, Pocantico blow-ofF (Shaft No. 9), Gould's 
Swamp crossing (Shafts No. ii-A and ii-B), Ardsley blow- 
ofF (Shaft No. 14), and Dunwoodie blow-off (Shaft No. 
18). A military guard is at present maintained at these 
points, with the exception of the Gould's Swamp crossing. 
Required force, 32 men. 

Attached hereto is a diagram on which has been indi- 
cated the points to be guarded and patrolled, and the 
general character of guard and patrol that is proposed. 

A summary of the force that is now assigned and the 
force that it is proposed should be assigned to the guard- 
ing of the water-supply system outside of the New York 
City limits is set forth in the following table: 





Present System 


Proposed System 


Section 


Militia 
* 


Dept. or 
Bd.W. 

S.Men 


Total 


Militia 
* 


Dept. or 
Bd.W. 
S.Men 


Total 


Ashokan head-works and one 
and one-half miles of Aque- 
duct 


610 

S6o 
40 

250 
40 


25 


25 

610 

560 
40 

250 
40 


56 

16 
18 

250 
32 


9 

14 

10 
4 

2 


9 

70 


Aqueduct from head-works to 
Bull Hill tunnel (just east of 
Hudson River) . . 


Aqueduct from Bull Hill tunnel 

to Kensico Reservoir 

Kensico Reservoir 


26 

22 


Aqueduct from Kensico Res. 
to Hillview Res. and also 
Hillview Res 


250 
34 


Croton System 






Total 


1,500 


25 


1^525 


372 


39 


411 





* The subdivision of the military force is an approximation only. 



It will be noted from the above table that a comparatively 
large force would in the future be assigned to that portion 
of the Catskill Aqueduct lying between Kensico reservoir 
and the city line, if the present military system of 
guarding the Aqueduct is to be continued. The work of 



THE LINE IMPREGNABLE 185 

guarding the Aqueduct is now more a police than a mihtary 
problem. If the solution is placed in the hands of the 
Police Department it is believed that a special police 
force could be organized so as to still further reduce the 
number of men assigned to guarding the water-supply 
system. The following recommendations are submitted: 

1. That the attention of the Mayor be directed to the 
present guard for the water-supply system outside of the 
city limits, which has been furnished by the Governor 
at the request of the city authorities, and which is costing 
the city approximately ^5,cxdo a day, and utilizing man 
power estimated at about 1,500 men. 

2. That the Mayor be informed that the department is 
of the opinion that a very large reduction could be made 
in the guard now assigned to the Catskill Aqueduct, with- 
out endangering the continuity of the water supply. The 
reduction in cost that could be reasonably made would 
amount to some ^3,600 a day, and reduce the man power 
employed by about 1,100 men. 

3. That the attention of the Mayor be called to 
the desirability of determining whether those sections 
of the Aqueduct which require continuous guarding or 
continuous patrol should be protected by State Militia, 
or by a city controlled force, organized under the Police 
Department. 

4. That pending a determination of the extent to which 
the water-supply system is to be guarded, work be stopped 
on the installation of the telephone and lighting system for 
that portion of the Catskill Aqueduct lying north of 
Kensico reservoir. 

Respectfully, 

Wm. W. Brush, 

Acting Chief Engineer. 
January 15, 1918. 



Cost of Telephone and Electric Lighting Equipment Required 
by the Military Authorities for Protection of the Aqueduct. 

Telephone equipment $29,500 

Lighting lines and equipment 80,000 

Interior wiring of cantonment buildings 6,744 

Estimated total cost of contr. wk $116,244 



i86 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

Estimated Annual Cost of Telephone and Electric 
Lighting Service. 

Telephone system $20,000 

Current, lamps, etc., for lighting 35>ooo 

Estimated total cost of maintenance $55,000 

Securing letters from the Mayor which gave him access to all 
police circles, and to all information in the possession of the Fire 
Department, Colonel Rose threw a picked squad of his staff officers 
into the German maze in New York, clad in rough civilian clothes. 
On the docks, among the shipping offices, the warehouse districts 
and the known German gathering places they worked quietly 
for three days. Then Colonel Rose was ready. 

He met the Acting Chief Engineer and Police Inspector Cohalane 
at Croton Lake and on Jan. 21st forwarded his historic reply that 
clinched for all time to come in the minds of New York officialdom 
the importance of Aqueduct work. It satisfied not only the city 
authorities, but those of greater power and interest, that the 
safety of the Aqueduct meant the safety of New York — that the 
safety of New York was not to be tampered with by civil inter- 
ference of any kind. The letter was forwarded to Mayor Hylan 
and Governor Smith, then president of the Board of Estimate 
and Apportionment, and was as follows: 

Jan. 21, 1918. 
From: Commanding Officer, First Provisional Regiment. 
To: Honorable John F. Hylan, Mayor of the City 

of New York. 
Subject: Guarding New York City's Water Supply. 

1. The City of New York must protect itself against 
any attack, from any source, which will cripple its Water 
Supply System. 

2. In this world-wide struggle. New York City must 
maintain an impregnable position. 

3. The American Forces and those of the AlHes are sup- 
plied from the Port of New York. Any attempt to weaken 
its usefulness will cause disastrous results. 

4. The President of the United States in his message to 
Congress, in April, 1917, in no uncertain terms expressed 
the attitude of the American people toward the Imperial 
Government of Germany. 



First Battalion 



COMPAEY C - S-^CTOR 3-1 
20 UlLRS 
HEADQUAHTERS BrEI.SOi;VIlLE 
Cold Springs Station 

Captain VY.E. White," 14th Inf, 
and It. 1. H. Gutterman 
37-48 

9 CULVERTS 
9 MaHHOLES 

1 OPE?I PIPE 

2 SIPHOHS 




uarrison Outpost, 21 Miles from 

Garrison Station. 
1st It. F. A. BPldwir., 14th Inf. 

13-12 




2 MeJiholes 
5 Culverts 




Indian Brook, 2i- Uilea from 
Gold Springs Station. 

10-19 


2 Culverts 

2 Siphon Houses 

1 Manhole 

1 Open Pipe 






Breakneck Outpost, Breaknecsk Sta. 
Storm King Mt. 

10-30 




3 Siphon Houses 
3 Culverts 

1 Manhole 
1 Boathole 





COMPAHT B - SECTOR S-2 
7i MILES 
HEADQUARTERS, PEEZSEILl HOLLOW HD 
Bear Peekskill. 

Captain J.J. Roche, 69tli Inf. 
2iid It. R.V. O'Grady, 69th Inf. 

52-72 

11 CULVERTS 
8 MAUHOLES 
2 BLOW OPP CaaiBERS 
2 SIPHON E0U35S 
1 AIH VALVE 



Sprout Brook Outpost, Gallows Hill Rd. 

6 Miles from Peakakill. 
let Lt. S.M. Kirkpatrick, 69th Inf. 



2 


Siphon Houses 


1 


Cable End, Garrison 




Tunnel. 


6 


Menholea 


1 


Blow Off Chancer 



COMPAEY D - SECIOP. S-4 & 5 
12 MILES 
HEADQUARTERS, CROI£POinD ROAD 
3 Miles from Peekskill 



Captain F.C. 
1st Lt. J. I 



7 CULVERTS 
2 >lAlv' HOLES 



Keuhnle, 
. Braden, 



71st Inf. 
71st Inf. 



field Street Outpost, 2-|- 
from Peekskill. 



2^ - ^^ 



Scribaers Farm Outpost, 3 Uiles 

from Yorktovm Heights. 
2nd Lt. H. R. Lydeeker , 8th C.A.C. 

25 - ,24 



Groton Lelie Outpost, v/est Croton 
Lake Station 



2 Siphons 
6 Culverts 
2 Manholes 



3 Culverts 
6 Manholes 
2 Siphons 



1 Siphon House 

1 Blow Off Chsmher 

1 Manhole 



C(M2iJSY A - SECTOR S-5 
HEADQUARTERS CAMP PELL 
MILLWOOD, N. Y. 
State Road about 4 Miles from 
Oaeining. 

15 MILES 
Capt. B. Van Zandt, 12th Inf. 
let Lt, I.J. Usaloker. 12th Inf 



9 CULVERTS 
5 MAMHOLES 
1 30ATH0LE 



Camp Fisher, 
6 


Chappoqua 
- 1=1 


. 1B1 


Lieut. 


Camp Dyer, S 
16 


Millwood 
- 23 






Camp Denny, Kitchawan. 
6 - J7, 


Lt. 


Ussicker 


Camp Winthrop, Croton 
13 - 1-20 


[,ake 


2nd Lt. 


Camp Eew Dam 
12 


Croton. 
- 11 







1 Culvert 

2 Rianholee 



4 Culverts 
1 Boathole 
4 Manholes 



1 Culvert 

2 Manholes 



2 Culverts 

2 Gate House 
1 Boathole 
1 Manhole 



Spillway 

Bast end Bridge 
West end Bridge 



Third Battalion 



COUPAirr M - SECTOR S-6 & 7 
24 MTT.KS 
HEADQU^TEHS, V^HALLA, IJ. Y. 

Captain R. L. Vandewater, 14th Inf. 

35 - 39 

KEISIGO DAM 



Outpost 1, Pleasentville 
12 - 11 




2 Siphon Chambers 




Outpost 2, PleasantTille 
5-5 




1 Culvert 
1 Manhole 
Round House 




Outpost 3, Pleasantville 
47th Inf. 
33 - 36 


3 Culverts 
1 Manhole 
1 Boathole 




Outpost 4, Pleasantville 
7-7 


Insulating Chamber 




Outpost 4, Valhalla 
15 - 15 


Influent Chatdber 
Gate & Lower- Chamber 
3 Culverts 
1 Boethole 




Outpost .5, Valhalla 
10 - 14 




2 Siphon Houses 



COICABT I - SECTOR S-8 

HEADQUARTERS TARRYTOWII KD. 

EUISPORD 

27 KILSS 

Captain B.J. Young, 13th C.A.C. 
let Lt. W. A. Lynch, 13th C.A.C. 
2na It. W. D. Buckley, 13th C.A.C 



1 SIPHOH HOUSE 
1 SIP HOB CHoMBER 



Outpost 1, Aqueduct F. Tarrytown Rd. 
& Paine Avenu« 

8 . JX. 




2 Culverts 










3 Culverts 


Outpost 2, Paine Ave., Elamford. 
11 - J5 








Outpost 3, Paine Ave. & State Ed. 
7 - 11^ 




1 Manhole 

Dr^ns 

1 Culv.ert 




Landers Head Outpost, Landers Rd. & 
Aqueduct. 

6 - _9_ 


1 Culvert 










2 Manholes 

1 Siphon Chamber 


Grenvllle Outpoet, Granville & Tarry- 
to?m Road. 

9 - 12. 








North Tarrytown Outpost, llorth Tarry^ 
town & Eew Crotou System 

7 - ^ 




1 Gate House 

1 Siphon Chamber 





COMPANY L - SECTOR. S-9A 
■ 5i- MILES 
HEADQU.'J^TERS, PORT HILL RD. 

Kear Central Avenue 
ARDSLEY - OK - PUTK.J>I. 

Captain A.H. Westcott 

Troop G, Sqd. D, 1st Csv. 

2nd Lt. CM. Servatlus, 
Troop G, Sgd. D. 1st Cav, 



5 CULVERTS 

2 SIPHOI-I c:-iAJ.IBSRS 



Outpost 2, Piatt Ave., Ardsley 
11 - 19 




2 Culverts 




Outpost 3, Underhill Road 
1st Lt. G.C. r/eed 

29 - 43 


11 Culverts 




Outpost 4, Ardsley. 
4-6 


1 Culvert 





COMPAEY K - SECTOR S-9B 

6 MILES 

HBADQOAETERS, PAUffiR AVE. 

YOEKERS 

Captain J. W. Johnson, 4th Inf. 
1st Lt. O.D. Eaton, 4th Inf. 

24 - 30 

1 CULVERT 
1 (■AKHOLE 
1 SIPHOII CHAifflER 
SPILLWAY 




Outpost 1, Scoarlic Farm, 
Tuokahoe Road 

16 - 16 




4 Culverts 
1 Meter House 




Outpost 2, "Tucjcahoe Road 
Yonkers. 

1» - 9 


1 Siphon Chamber 
1 Culvert 






Outpost 3, Dunwooaie 
15 - 15 


1 Gate Louse 
1 Pump House 

Chlorinating Plant 




Outpost 4, Hillview Reservoir 
8-8 


north Gate 












Outpost 5, 111 11 view Reservoir 
5-5 


South Gate 







THE LINE IMPREGNABLE 187 

5. The Senate and House of Representatives, in Congress 
assembled, answering to the call, declared that a state of 
war with the Imperial Government of Germany existed. 

6. Through sources, the reliability of which could not 
be questioned, the Mayor of the City of New York, in 
February, 1917, learned that conditions demanded that 
an adequate guard should be placed over the entire New 
York City Water Supply System; and immediately upon 
the breaking off of diplomatic relations called upon the 
Governor of the State of New York to furnish the necessary 
military force to guard that portion of the System outside 
of the City of New York. 

7. Responding to this request, the Governor of the 
State of New York immediately ordered on duty a force of 
3,7CX) officers and men. The Commanding General assigned 
them to duty. 

8. Anticipating the withdrawal on August loth, 1917, 
by the Federal Government of the above-mentioned 
troops, the Governor of the State of New York, on August 
I, 1917, through the Adjutant-General, invited the Com- 
manding Officer of the ist Infantry, New York Guard, to 
make a study of the problem. 

9. It was determined that a force of 53 officers and 
1,200 men properly distributed over the Aqueduct, sup- 
plied with adequate transportation facilities, could handle 
the situation, provided the culverts were properly screened, 
and a telephone and electric lighting system installed. 

10. The Governor then ordered the Commanding Officer 
of the I St Infantry, New York Guard, to organize a pro- 
visional regiment of that number, and directed him to 
confer with the municipal authorities of the City of New 
York. 

11. Conferences were held with the Mayor, the Comp- 
troller, representatives of the Commissioner of Water Sup- 
ply, Gas & Electricity and the Police Department, and 
distribution of troops satisfactory to the Mayor of the 
City of New York was made along the line of the Catskill 
and Croton Aqueduct Systems. Plans for the grating of 
culverts and the installation of telephone and electric- 
lighting systems were approved, and the necessary trans- 
portation facilities were authorized. 

12. On August 10, 1917, the First Provisional Regiment 
was distributed along the entire line of the Catskill and 
Croton Aqueduct System. 

IS 



H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

13. Since that date the Commanding Officer of the First 
Provisional Regiment has continuously given the closest 
attention to the situation; and as a result of his studies 
speaks with absolute confidence; and, with all the power 
that is within him, states that any reduction in the num- 
ber of men now guarding the New York Water Supply 
would not only be unwise, but would be extremely dan- 
gerous. 

14. That the Aqueduct is efficiently guarded to the extent 
possible with the men and facilities placed at the disposal 
of the Commanding Officer of the First Provisional Regi- 
ment, is admitted. 

15. On Saturday, January 12, 1918, the Commanding 
Officer of the First Provisional Regiment, with Hon. Alfred 
E. Smith, President of the Board of Aldermen, conferred 
with Hon. John F. Hylan, Mayor of the City of New York, 
with the result that the Mayor and the President of the 
Board of Aldermen pledged their support and co-operation. 

16. On Wednesday, January 16, 1918, the President of 
the Board of Aldermen presented to the Commanding 
Officer of the First Provisional Regiment a copy of a report 
dated January 14, 1918, which had been submitted by the 
Acting Chief Engineer of the Department of Water Supply, 
Gas & Electricity, in which the Acting Chief Engineer 
recommended that a reduction in the number of men guard- 
ing the New York Water Supply above Kensico and out- 
side of the Croton Lake System, be made. 

17. The President of the Board of Aldermen requested 
the Commanding Officer of the First Provisional Regiment 
to consider this report, and present his recommendations 
at a conference to be called at a later date. 

18. At the request of the Commanding Officer of the First 
Provisional Regiment, the Acting Chief Engineer and In- 
spector Cohalane of the Police Department accepted an 
invitation and came to Regimental Headquarters at Croton 
Lake, N. Y., where a conference was held, and a further 
discussion of the reports of the Acting Chief Engineer and 
conditions affecting the New York City Water Supply was 
had. 

19. The Acting Chief Engineer furnished the Command- 
ing Officer of the First Provisional Regiment with a large 
amount of information, giving in detail his complete view 
of the situation. 

20. After a critical study of the report and the closest 



THE LINE IMPREGNABLE 189 

scrutiny of the additional data presented by the Acting 
Chief Engineer, the Commanding Officer is more fully 
convinced than ever that there must be no reduction in 
the forces guarding New York City's water supply. 

21. Stripped of every other consideration, the recom- 
mendation of the Acting Chief Engineer is based on the 
assumption that since the declaration of war with Germany, 
the danger of attack has decreased. His recommendation 
must therefore fall, unless he can prove beyond any ques- 
tion that this assumption is correct. What are the facts? 

22. The declaration of war with Austria and the result- 
ing order of the Federal Government that thousands of 
Austrians be discharged by their employers, enraged these 
men and made aggressive enemies of those who were for- 
merly passive in their hatred of America. 

23. The .importance of this fact to the student of this 
problem is brought home by the knowledge that thousands 
of Austrians have been discharged by the New York Cen- 
tral and West Shore Railroads, and also by the operators 
of ship-yards and cement works throughout the territory 
through which the Aqueduct runs. 

24. The records of the Fire Department of the City of 
New York give indisputable proof to the fact that our en- 
emies are more aggressive than ever. The Federal Govern- 
ment, than whom there is no higher authority, is con- 
firmed in this opinion. 

25. The Federal Government, assuming the control of 
the docks of the City of New York, immediately placed 
guards thereon. It is needless to say that the discharge of 
hundreds of Austrians, previously employed as longshore- 
men, contributed to this action. 

26. The determination upon the part of the Federal 
Government to make this change did not take place in 
February, March, April or May of 1917, but only within 
the past thirty days. We are forced to conclude that our 
enemies are more aggressive, and that danger of attacks 
has increased. No other conclusion is possible. As the 
basis of the recommendation falls, so falls the recommen- 
dation. 

27. In the further analysis of the recommendations of 
the Acting Chief Engineer, one claim stands out very 
clearly, namely, "A very large reduction could be made in 
the guard now assigned to the Catskill Aqueduct without 
endangering the continuity of the water supply." This is 



I90 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

based on the belief that no breach could be caused above 
Kensico Reservoir which could not be repaired in sixty 
days. 

28. There is only one basis for this opinion, namely, that 
a breach would be caused only at one point, at any one 
time. We are compelled to admit that this country is now 
at war with a resourceful and a most efficiently prepared 
enemy, who would not strike without the fullest prepa- 
ration, and with the idea paramount of doing the greatest 
damage, without warning. To blow up the Aqueduct at 
but a single point, at one time, would be absolutely ridicu- 
lous. That this would cause no serious inconvenience, 
and would be futile, is as well known to our enemies as it 
is to ourselves. 

29. With the position of New York City as a determin- 
ing factor in the settlement of this world-wide .war, there 
is nothing that our enemies in this country could do which 
would cause greater havoc and distress than the annihil- 
ation of its Water Supply System, which would afford the 
thousands of alien enemies now residing within the City of 
New York an opportunity to destroy the city by the torch. 
Therefore, if an attempt was made, the Aqueduct would 
not be blown up at but one point, but at every possible point 
that was left unguarded. 

30. If seventy-two fires were started in the populous, 
well-protected City of New York by the torch in one day, 
would the master mind who has conceived that plan, stop at 
blowing up a single culvert, or would it blow up seventy 
culverts over a widely distributed area of forty-five miles, 
under conditions where the Acting Chief Engineer states 
that it will be unguarded for eighteen hours each day.^ 

31. Will any one dare to claim that the destruction of 
seventy-two culverts, with a tremendous outpouring of 
water, which is admitted would destroy the foundations of 
the Aqueduct itself as well as interrupting the continuity 
of its flow, could be repaired within six months, and if the 
enemy could destroy the Aqueduct at thirty or forty points 
from Cornwall to Ashokan, would not a tremendous drive 
be made immediately in an attempt to destroy Kensico 
Reservoir and other vulnerable points? 

32. Success at one point would encourage our enemies 
to go to the limit. 

33. The City of New York requires 573 million gallons of 
water daily under normal conditions in times of peace. 



THE LINE IMPREGNABLE 191 

Any one who assumes the responsibiHty of jeopardizing 
the safety of the City of New York must figure what the 
demand would be under abnormal conditions where an 
organized attack by the torch threatened the destruction 
of the city. If conditions were normal, the discussion of 
this question would be unnecessary. 

34. With an organization composed of 50,000 German 
reservists in the City of New York, most of whom are uni- 
versity men, it is the part of wisdom that any one recom- 
mending a change must answer to the people of New York 
City, not whether this change was dictated by a policy of 
economy, but whether the safety of the city was at all 
times preserved at all hazards. The City of New York 
cannot afford to waste a single dollar; but the City of 
New York might better expend millions of dollars than to 
take a chance of having the city destroyed. 

35. The margin of safety must be so great that at no 
time will that margin be wiped out, no matter what the 
demand may be. Under no circumstances can we consider 
any recommendation for a change which contemplates any 
added risk. It is just as necessary that the margin of 
safety should be preserved as it is essential that a com- 
mander shall have his support and reserve to draw upon. 

36. It would be perilous to figure the requirements of the 
city at less than 700 million gallons daily. The maximum 
supply from the entire water system is 950 million gal- 
lons daily, made up as follows: 

Catskill, including Bronx and Byram . . .390 million 

Croton • • • 390 million 

Long Island and Richmond 170 million 

Destroy either of the two larger sources of supply, and you 
throw wide open the doors, inviting destruction at the 
hands of our enemies. The City of New York cannot adopt 
a policy which would bring it in such dire straits that it 
had no alternative upon which to depend. 

37. It may be claimed that the reservoir at Kensico, 
with a capacity of 25,000 million gallons, could be drawn 
upon in an emergency. The great minds which conceived 
the Catskill System placed that supply in Kensico as a re- 
serve; and any policy which would create a necessity for 
the use of the reserve as part of its normal supply system, 



192 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

would not only be unwise, but such a policy would place 
the safety of the city in jeopardy. 

38. Eliminate the Catskill System by a thoroughly 
planned attack which will cause breaches in the Aqueduct 
at various points along the line, the immediate establish- 
ment of an Aqueduct guard on the Long Island and Rich- 
mond Systems — which are without protection now — and 
the augmenting of the guard on the Croton Systems, be- 
come an absolute necessity. 

39. When New York City drew its water supply from the 
Croton and Long Island and Richmond Systems, it was 
necessary to operate forty-two pumping stations, consum- 
ing approximately 400 tons of coal daily and requiring a 
large force of skilled mechanics; and it was also necessary 
to operate pumps owned by private citizens in ten to 
twelve thousand buildings in New York City. These build- 
ings are of no greater height than five or six stories, and 
are principally tenement-houses and loft buildings in Man- 
hattan and Bronx which, prior to the time when water was 
supplied by the Catskill System, received no water above 
the fourth story during the daytime, except through the 
operation of these pumps. 

40. With the utilization of the Catskill System, pump- 
ing stations and privately owned pumps were abandoned, 
with the exception of the three pumping stations now oper- 
ated by the City of New York. This is possible because 
the water supply through the Catskill System comes in at 
a higher pressure. Afford an opportunity to our enemies 
to destroy the Catskill System, and in order that a reason- 
able margin of safety shall be preserved, the City of New 
York will be compelled to immediately operate thirty- 
nine additional pumping stations which will cost over three 
thousand dollars per day, and citizens of New York City 
will also be compelled to operate privately owned pumps 
in ten or twelve thousand buildings in New York City. 
The latter pumps have not been inspected during the 
past year or more, and as a matter of fact, there is nothing 
at hand to show that the pumps are ready for operation, 
or that they are even in place; and it is very doubtful if 
they could be obtained quickly in the open market. 

41. In any event, the cost of an adequate guard placed 
upon the Long Island and Richmond Systems, the augmen- 
tation of the guard upon the Croton System and the oper- 
ation of the city-owned pumping stations, provided coal 



THE LINE IMPREGNABLE 193 

could be purchased, and if so at a price of ^8.00 per ton 
delivered at the station, would mean an expenditure of 
over five thousand dollars per day. 

42. The basis of this report is, that by the adoption of 
his recommendation, the City of New York will save ^3,200 
per day. This is made without a full realization of the 
great part that the City of New York plays in this world- 
wide struggle; without proper appreciation of that margin 
of safety which it is absolutely necessary that the City of 
New York must maintain. The big thought back of the 
question, which must be the guiding spirit and inspiration, 
is this: Dare we give consideration to any recommenda- 
tion for retrenchment when the adoption of such recom- 
mendation may place the City of New York in a position 
where the lives of her citizens may be jeopardized, or where 
the city may be unable to render that support which the 
city owes to the nation in the present crisis. 

[Signed] John B. Rose, 

Colonel. 

Followed a personal conference with Mayor Hylan and Governor 
Smith, at the conclusion of which Mayor Hylan wrote to Colonel 
Rose as follows: 

City of New York 
Office of the Mayor 

January 21, 1918. 
Sir: 

In accordance with the agreement reached after our 
conference of this date between yourself, the President of 
the Board of Aldermen and myself, I desire to say that 
there will be no application on behalf of the city for the 
lessening of the guard now protecting the city's aqueduct 
system; and I have further caused instructions to be issued 
to the Commissioner of Water Supply, Gas and Electricity 
to proceed as rapidly as possible with the consummation 
of the telephone and electric light contracts, as per your 
request. 

Very truly yours, 

John F. Hylan, 

Mayor. 
Col. John B. Rose, 

Commanding Officer of the First Provisional Regiment. 



194 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

So ended the Brush incident. The position of the military 
forces on miHtary matters was by it pre-eminently established 
and from that time until the end of the service the position of 
Colonel Rose on the matter of guard was unquestioned. 

The attitude of the home station furnished the other big 
trouble. This attitude was most apparent in the problem of re- 
lease and replacement which gave the regiment so many anxious 
hours. Since it was the attitude of the Adjutant-General, after 
the organization of the New York Guard, that all field duty must 
be voluntary and not ordered, release from the field could be 
secured not only for Federal enlistment or draft, but for the 
slightest of dependency claim, agricultural claim, or educational 
claim. And it was almost impossible for the commanding officers 
of units to stand between their men and those at home station 
constantly attempting to secure their release from the field. There 
were many real cases of dependency, but they were few in com- 
parison with the many pseudo cases, made possible by the very 
attitude toward field service in the State. This one factor alone 
kept the release figures high. 

In addition, there were constant releases for physical unfit- 
ness and general unfitness, upon the recommendation of unit 
commanders. 

But the greatest loss in officers, as well as men, was to the 
Federal Army, where the lure of overseas service was in many 
cases supreme to the spirit of self-sacrifice that the men of the 
Aqueduct maintained throughout. When the last faint hope 
of federalization went fleeting, the exodus to the Federal Army 
was tremendous. Only the Spanish influenza and the resulting 
quarantine saved the line from being practically stripped of men 
and officers. Under orders of the Adjutant-General of the State, 
draftees and enlistments were held up while the epidemic raged, 
and the correspondence on this subject between 'the Commanding 
Officer, the Adjutant-General of the State and the Provost- 
Marshal-General at Washington, forms an interesting phase of 
the regiment's story. The first telegrams of protest in the mat- 
ter of officers who had secured entry into the Federal service 
by one method or another, were as follows: 

To: The Adjutant-General, State of New York, 
Albany, N. Y. 

Capt. E. C. Waterbury, Assistant Medical Officer First 
Provisional Regiment, has been ordered to report to Fort 
Oglethorpe. After conference with the Chief Medical 



THE LINE IMPREGNABLE 195 

Officer of this regiment, Major Charles E. Townsend, who 
informs the Commanding Officer that Major Reid of the 
Medical Corps, U. S. A., refused to accept Major Towns- 
end's services a month ago and that of Captain Waterbury 
for Federal service, on the ground that the work which they 
were performing as the medical officers of this regiment 
was of such importance that they could only be relieved 
from duty. This statement was made at a time when the 
health of the men of the regiment was normally good. 
Major Townsend informs me that he cannot release Cap- 
tain Waterbury in this crisis. In addition to the hundreds 
of cases of Spanish influenza, which has already caused ten 
deaths, typhoid has now broken out on the line, and while 
blood tests show only one assured case, conditions are so 
serious that the Chief Medical Officer states that he will 
not be responsible unless adequate support is given. The 
Commanding Officer takes this opportunity to again renew 
his request that a definite policy regarding the future 
of this regiment be determined upon. Officers and men 
have hoped for Federal recognition for the past fourteen 
months and stand ready to perform any service which may 
be assigned to them. If the task which has been assigned 
to this regiment is of sufficient importance to require the 
great expenditure which is necessary to maintain the regi- 
ment in the field, some assurance must be given that the 
regiment will not be torn apart by inroads caused by the 
draft and induction of officers and men into Federal service. 
The conditions cited above have depleted the strength of 
this regiment to a condition where the loss of three or four 
hundred men who are scheduled for release on account of 
draft, would make the position of the regiment as an 
effective force guarding the Aqueduct, absolutely im- 
possible. 

[Signed] John B. Rose, 

Colonel. 



To: The Adjutant-General, State of New York, 
Albany, New York. 

The effect of the amendment of August 31, 1918, is to 
permit claims to be made by or in respect of necessary per- 
sons engaged in occupations or employments found to be 
necessary to the maintenance of the military establish- 
ment or the effective operation of the military forces. No 



196 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

more important duty has been assigned to any troops in 
this country than the adequate protection of the water 
supply system of New York City, extending for 99 miles 
from New York City to Ashokan. For over 14 months the 
First Provisional Regiment of the New York Guard, with 
at no time more than 1,500 men, has guarded this system 
in such manner that not a particle of damage has been 
suffered to the property guarded, notwithstanding that 
this section of the country is infested with enemy aliens; 
many shots have been fired at sentries, and they have been 
attacked and so seriously injured that it was necessary to 
place them in hospitals. The peculiar nature of this duty 
has demanded special training on the part of men and 
officers, in addition to their knowledge of strictly military 
matters, the result being that certain men are indispensable 
to the conduct of the regiment's task, and owing to their 
many months of training in this particular duty, could not 
be replaced. Among this group is the Adjutant of the 
regiment. With the regiment struck by an epidemic of 
Spanish influenza, which has necessitated the organizing of 
two field hospitals, the establishment of a strict quarantine, 
and has caused the weakening of effectives by several 
hundred, including ten deaths; with the winter coming 
on and with the greater proportion of the men about to 
leave the regiment as soon as the quarantine is lifted, be- 
cause of the draft — the Commanding Officer of the Regi- 
ment will not be responsible for the protection of this water 
supply system unless the situation is so brought to the atten- 
tion of Provost-Marshal-General Crowder, that a decision 
will be rendered which will prevent the officers and men 
of this regiment being inducted into Federal service, and 
will insure their remaining on duty with this regiment 
until an investigation of conditions on this line has been 
made and the quarantine removed. Specifically, Capt. 
T. R. Hutton, Regimental Adjutant, has made application 
for induction. Photographic Section, Signal Corps, about 
Sept. 20th, 1918. Competent orders issued to local board 
Division No. 2, City of Utica, County of Oneida, N. Y., 
to induct applicant upon qualification for general military 
service by examining physician, local board; examina- 
tion transferred to Board No. 5, for Westchester County. 
Applicant certified for general military service by local 
board No. 5, Oct. i6th, 191 8. Will be ordered to report 
to C. O. School of Photography, Signal Corps, Columbia 



THE LINE IMPREGNABLE 197 

University, City of New York. Request that action in this 
and all other cases be deferred. 

[Signed] John B. Rose, 

Colonel. 

These telegrams were successful and orders were issued delay- 
ing and eventually preventing the departure of Captain Waterbury 
and Captain Hutton. 

Then Colonel Rose took up the question of Federal draftees 
generally in the following correspondence: 

To: Major F. S. Hutchinson, U. S. A., 

Executive Officer, Selective Service Hdqrts., 
Albany, N. Y. 

The line of the First Provisional Regiment extends from 
Ashokan to Hillview, one hundred miles in length. Troops 
are quartered in buildings at sixty posts and outposts 
along this line. The character of this work is such that 
while a quarantine has been established, it is absolutely 
necessary for the Supply Company to deliver subsistence 
and quartermaster stores. Medical officers and Ambulance 
Corps drivers go from post to post, and as the work of 
guarding New York City's water-supply system must go 
on regardless of the chance of infection, all reasonable pre- 
cautions have been taken. Inspections must be frequently 
made. All officers and men are thus liable to infection, 
and the word of the Chief Medical Officer, a man of unusual 
ability and rare judgment, should be law. He states the 
quarantine should not be lifted until the danger of infec- 
tion and spread of disease by carriers is past; so, under 
the orders of the Commanding Officer, no member of this 
regiment is relieved from duty without direct orders from 
higher authority. The authorized strength of the regi- 
ment on August ist was fifteen hundred. The actual 
strength at that time was eleven fifty-nine. The Board of 
Water Supply Police have been withdrawn from the head- 
waters of the Aqueduct and one hundred additional men 
from this regiment are required. Owing to the spread of 
the epidemic and the necessity for the establishment of two 
field hospitals, in which, at this date, twenty-five Federal 
patients have been placed by order of the Department of 
the East, Governors Island, and one hundred and twenty- 
five men of this regiment are also patients there, all of 



198 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

which requires an organization of at least one hundred 
men for hospital and orderly service, leaves a total of 
eight hundred and forty men available for duty. There are 
between three hundred and four hundred additional men 
scheduled for release to draft boards, which would reduce 
our strength to about five hundred men. To attempt to 
guard the Aqueduct under these conditions would be ridicu- 
lous. It is estimated that approximately ten million dol- 
lars of the taxpayers' money of the City of New York has 
been spent for this work. Either it was necessary or there 
has been a tremendous waste and some one will be held 
accountable. Can you not assist in obtaining relief in this 
crisis.^ No man can be released to a local board unless 
immediate replacements are made by order of higher 
authority. 

[Signed] John B. Rose, 

Colonel. 

The final ruling of the Provost-Marshal-General came on 

Nov. II, 1 91 8, and was as follows: 

"C. O. First Provisional Regiment: 

The following telegram from the Adjutant-General of 
Army, Washington, addressed to the Governor, repeated 
for your information: 

"Re your telegram October 23rd, reference guard 
duty of New York Provisional Organization on Barge 
Canal and New York Aqueduct, Secretary of War recog- 
nized importance of the Public Utilities involved, but 
decides that exemption indicated cannot be considered 
in view of precedent which would be established and deems 
it wiser to replace personnel withdrawn by operation of 
Selective Draft from reserve of personnel available under 
State authority, even though such method temporarily 
reduces efficiency of Provisional Guard Regiment. 

[Signed] ** Harris. 

[Signed] Edward J. Westcott, 

Acting The Adjutant-General." 

By this time the war was about over and the matter settled 
itself. 

To secure replacements for the thousands who went from the 



THE LINE IMPREGNABLE 199 

ranks of the First Provisional to the Federal army or to home 
station was by far the regiment's biggest worry. The line could 
not be maintained in its total impregnability with insufficient 
men for such maintenance. At the best, the work was without 
honor or glory, and the shorter the man power in the later days 
the greater amount of work per capita and the greater the dis- 
satisfaction in some quarters. The regiment of September, 1918, 
was by no means the regiment of September, 191 7, in so far as length 
of service went with the greater portion of the men on some 
sectors. There were units like that of Captain Johnson and 
Company A that maintained their backbone of veterans to the 
end, but there were many units largely comprised of very new 
men, and regimental ideals, standards and precedents cannot be 
instilled within a month into the mind of the new man, unless 
he sees real hardship. 

Trouble in securing men from home station had begun in the 
previous winter with the attitude of superior authority that since 
New York City paid the bill, all replacements must be from the 
City of New York. This eliminated the replacements from up- 
State units entirely and the number of up-State men in the field 
was gradually but surely reduced while this method was in vogue. 
It resulted in the elimination of a large number of good up- 
State officers and made for change and shift on the line. 

Even then the trouble would have been minimized had the 
home station organizations in New York City been willing or in a 
position to meet the requirements of the Aqueduct service. As 
has been indicated, the greater share of the officers at home station 
knew little of the work, and in all honesty and sincerity they 
maintained their armory units for the purpose of drill and parade 
at the expense of those in the Aqueduct snowdrifts, doing double 
duty in the cold because there were not enough men. When the 
privilege of inspection, physical examination, selection and re- 
jection was denied the First Provisional during the spring of 1918, 
the difficulties of maintaining the Line Impregnable were almost 
doubled. Even then New York units were unable to meet the 
demands, and when Brigade Headquarters attempted to correlate 
the release and replacement situation with the New York Bri- 
gades matters went from bad to worse. An idea of how the release 
and replacement situation habitually stood may be gained from 
the following report made by the Lieut. -Colonel in July, showing 
that of 202 men called for in less than a month only 66 had actu- 
ally been furnished. Between the lines of the report may be read 
the desperate condition which the regiment faced just before the 
return of Colonel Rose. 



200 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

July 7, 1918. 
The Commanding Officer, First Provisional Regiment. 
The Commanding General, Provisional Brigade, 
Albany, N. Y. 

Release and Replacement. 

1. Reports of Commanding Officers of the various units 
of this regiment show that although 202 men have been 
ordered replaced from New York regiments by the Adjutant- 
General, State of New York, only 66 replacements have been 
actually received on the line of this regiment under the 
various orders of replacement, since A. G. O. 143, which 
marked the beginning of the new method of release and 
replacement of this regiment. 

2. Two hundred and seventy-six releases and replacements 
have been requested and sixty-six replacements have been 
secured, as shown in the^foUowing table: 

Requested Actually 

Unit Released Replaced 

A 59 GO 

B 6 GO 

C 7 00 

D 13 8 

E 56 12 

F 21 6 

G 20 GO 

H iG 7 

I 12 7 

K 18 12 

L II 3 

M 18 9 

MG 25 9 

Total 276 66 

3. These figures do not include the Headquarters Com- 
pany or Supply Company, both of which are under strength 
as a result of releases, the Headquarters Company being 
entitled to eight replacements. 

4. The following table shows the number of men ordered 
into the field from the various organizations by the 
Adjutant-General under the new method of release and 



THE LINE IMPREGNABLE lot 

replacement; that is, since and including S. O. 143, A. G. 
O., the actual number received from these organizations 
and the number still due. In recent orders replacements 
from regiments of the 2nd Brigade have merely been 
designated by the brigade number, so that in addition to 
the number specified from regiments of the 2nd Brigade, 
by name, there is a large balance due which merely appears 
under the heading *'2nd Brigade": 



No. Ordered No. Actually Balance 

Organization into the Field Received Due 

I2th Inf. 35 00 35 

14th Inf 22 15 7 

23rd Inf. 3 00 3 

47th Inf. 21 12 9 

69th Inf. 14 9 5 

71st Inf. 17 8 9 

8th C. A. C 10 00 10 

13th C. A. C . . . 23 22 I 

"2nd Brigade". . 57 00 57 

Total 202 66 136 

5. The discrepancy between the number asked and the 
number authorized is accounted for by passage through the 
mails and military channels of requests by this office for 
which no corresponding orders have been received. 

6. Attention is respectfully invited to the fact that when 
the new system of release and replacement began, the 
units of this regiment were below strength in most instances, 
and since replacements are now being received for an equal 
number of men released, it is impossible to overcome the 
original shortage, unless a block replacement is ordered to 
fill the place of troops released, but not replaced before the 
new system was put into operation. 

7. The orders of the Adjutant-General for commanding 
officers of home units to communicate with the Head- 
quarters of the First Provisional Regiment concerning re- 
placements ready to come into the field, is complied with 
in some instances by telephone, but this is never con- 
firmed by letter, nor is the number of the Adjutant- 
General's order, under which replacements are sent out, 
furnished to this headquarters at the time the replacements 



202 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA > 

are made by home units. It is suggested that a very definite 
plan should be arranged to meet this difficulty. The 
situation at the present time is a confusing one for the 
First Provisional Regiment, and must be more so for the 
commanding officers at home station. 

8. Failure to make replacements exactly as requested in 
the schedules forwarded daily from this Headquarters 
has made it impossible to comply in toto with the Com- 
manding General's wish concerning distribution of troops 
according to organizations. For instance: Nine men 
are needed for 13th C. A. C. replacements in Co. I, which 
is the 13th C. A. C. unit on the First Provisional line; two 
23rd Infantry replacements and eight 8th C. A. C. replace- 
ments are needed by the Machine Gun Company, which 
is composed of these organizations. When the troops are 
assembled, however, both the 8th C. A. C. and the 23rd 
Infantry have failed to produce any men. On the other 
hand, the 13th C. A. C. has twenty men ready for active 
service. The nine 13th C. A. C. replacements will bring 
Co. I to maximum authorized strength. It is obvious that 
no more can be sent there. The other eleven must neces- 
sarily be used to strengthen the weakened line of the 
Machine Gun Company, and as a result the scheme of re- 
placing by organizations and maintaining organization 
distribution is broken. 

9. Another matter which may be noted in the question 
of release and replacement is that the type of men, or rather 
boys, that is being furnished by some of the home units 
is far from satisfactory to the unit commanders from 
those organizations serving on the First Provisional line. 
A great number of boys sixteen years of age have come into 
the field * * * some of them physically unfit and others 
released within a few days upon the presentation of birth 
certificates and the parents' claim that the boys entered 
active service without their consent. It is obvious that 
there is something to be remedied in a condition which per- 
mits of request for releases and replacements for fifty-six 
men from one company in less than a month, most of them 
for dependency, as is the case with Company E. The 
fifty-nine asked for by Company A are almost all a result of 
Federal enlistment. 

10. It is not necessary to point out that the vast number 
of releases and replacements is highly expensive in so far 
as transportation alone is concerned, to say nothing of 




Types of the Men Who Made Up the Line Impregnable, and How 
They Lived. Some Snapshots from the Machine- 
gun Company's Sector 




upper — Top of Valhalla Dam. 
tach from a different state unit. 



Ce7iter — Sixteen men of Company L, 
Lower — Foot of Valhalla Dam. 



THE LINE IMPREGNABLE 205 

the hardship imposed upon unit commanders who are 
losing men steadily and gaining by replacement in what is, 
at the present time, an ever-shrinking ratio. 

[Signed] William L. Burnett, 

Major, 1st Infantry, N. Y. G. 
Acting Lieut.-Colonel Commanding. 

It was a long and up-hill battle to secure relief from such a 
condition as this, but with the fall, and the first-hand information 
by Lieut.-Colonel Westcott, the Acting Adjutant-General, con- 
cerning the needs of the line there came a change. Matters went 
back to their original status; up-State replacements were al- 
lowed on Sept. 1st, and eventually came concession to the point 
that Colonel Rose had advocated from the beginning — ordered 
duty. 

That ordered duty, as might have been expected, came in the 
4th Infantry, commanded by Col. Edward E. Powell, the most 
staunch supporter of the First Provisional at home station. 
Colonel Powell from the time of his first visit to the line appreci- 
ated its needs, and the regiment never lacked active support 
from the commanding officer of the 4th. Loyal, willing and eager 
to help, it was Colonel Powell who, with ordered duty in his regi- 
ment, bridged the gap in man power for the First Provisional in 
the fall of 19 1 8 and supported its policies with an influence that 
was past all question. The staff and line of the First Provisional 
will never be able to express its full gratitude to the sturdy friend 
in Binghamton who meant so much to it in its tight pinches. 

The attention of the reader is invited to the charts of strength 
which accompany this chapter and which show better than writ- 
ten words can the fluctuations of the line totals. Check-roll calls 
showed that on an average the regiment ran 20 per cent, of its 
strength on guard duty every six hours, or 80 per cent, every 
twenty-four. How narrow a margin this left for special duty, 
police, fatigue, supervision and sickness is apparent. 

At the end of its service, with all its positions won or regained, 
the regiment's impregnable line remained unbroken. What visit- 
ors to the line found is best told in their own words in these 
letters that are here set down before the reader turns to that other 
side of the maintenance of the Line Impregnable — the shadowy, 
the intangible phase. 

This from ist Lieut. J. Howard Donaldson of Co. B, 28th 

United States Infantry, who won citation at the Hindenburg 

Line and saw all of the terrors of war abroad : 
14 



204 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

"Delta Kappa Epsilon Club 

Thirty West Forty-fourth Street 

New York 

Jan. 8, 1919. 
Capt. Rowland Pell: 

My dear Captain Pell, — I received your welcome let- 
ter the other day and was indeed very glad to hear from 
you. I also was sorry to have missed meeting your colonel. 
However, one can't expect to always find such dignitaries 
on hand at a moment's notice. 

I wish once more to thank you for the pleasant time that 
you gave me at Croton, and express to you my appreciation 
of the good but thankless work that you have been conduct- 
ing with your 'lost battalion' for the last two years. 

You asked me what I thought of your organization, and 
I indeed feel highly complimented to think that my opinion 
is desired. I most certainly think that the work that you 
have been carrying on under the State Guard has been one 
of hardships and trials, one with little honor, and yet very 
essential. Your entire outpost system is well organized, 
sanitary, and the men are all in a good cheerful frame of 
mind. These things all go to show how a military organiza- 
tion is functioning, and I must say that my short visit was 
a great surprise and eye-opener to me. I really had no con- 
ception of how important and arduous a task you few un- 
heard-of and unthanked men had been conducting. 

Many's the man in Federal service on this side who has 
seen less real soldiering and had to undergo many less hard- 
ships than the men of your unthanked, unheard-of 'lost 
battalion,' which stood nobly by and did its duty as real 
soldiers at the Croton Aqueduct. However, after all. Cap- 
tain Pell, now that the war is over and we are victorious, 
all that a man wants is the self-satisfaction of knowing that 
he, in his small place in our great army of freedom, has done 
his part and done it like a man. This priceless feeling of 
satisfaction may possibly be the only reward that your 
National Guard unit, especially the old 12th N. Y. InPy, 
may ever receive, yet it is that very spirit of self-sacrifice 
and forbearance under thankless circumstances that makes 
Americans — and makes them the leading people of the 
world to-day. 

Once more I want to thank you and all the officers of the 
post for the hearty way in which I was received while with 
them as your guest. 



THE LINE IMPREGNABLE 205 

Good-by and best of success for a speedy and successful 
completion of your duties in the army. 
Very sincerely, 

J. Rowland Donaldson, 
Ex-First Lieut. Co. B, 28th InPy." 

This from a report of officers of the 12th New York Infantry 
following an inspection of the line: 

"Headquarters i2Th Infantry, N. Y. G. 

August 30th, 1918. 
From: R. Saunders, Capt. 12th Inf., N. Y. G. 
To: Commanding Officer, 12th Inf., N. Y. G. 

Subject: Unofficial visit to the First Prov. Regt. Guarding 
Aqueduct. 

On Saturday, Aug. 17th, through the kindness of Captain 
Pell, an invitation was extended to Captain Dean and my- 
self to visit with him the troops of the New York Guard 
on duty guarding the Aqueduct to New York City. We 
started from New York City with Captain Pell by auto- 
mobile at 1.30 P.M., making our first stop at Palmer Avenue, 
Yonkers, at a camp commanded by Captain Johnson. * * * 

* * * Colonel Rose and his officers were extremely cour- 
teous to us during the period we were at their camps and he 
informed me that his only regret was that more officers of 
our regiment did not come there to see the work that was 
being done. I would recommend that the officers of this 
regiment do everything within their power to assist in the 
recruiting of those companies from this command that are 
attached to the First Provisional Regiment and that they 
lend every assistance within their power to assist in the work 
which is more important in my opinion than most of us 
realize. 

Captain Pell of this Command was very kind to us 
throughout our trip and made extra efforts to see that we 
were able to see all the conditions that prevailed in these 
camps thoroughly. 

Respectfully submitted, 
[Signed] R. Saunders, 

Captain.'' 

And this from Inspector Thomas Underbill of the New York 
Police, attached to the Division of National Defense: 



2o6 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

"Police Department 

City of New York 

Division of National Defense 

January 23, 1919. 
Colonel John B. Rose, 
1st Provisional Regiment, 
Ossining, N. Y. 

My dear Colonel: 

I trust you will pardon my delay in writing to you, ex- 
pressing my thanks for the kind hospitality and courteous 
treatment extended to us by yourself and staflF, on our 
recent visit to your headquarters at Ossining, New York. 



My return trip to Ossining has been postponed for the 
reason that when I submitted my report to the Police 
Commissioner, showing the results of our visit and opinions 
regarding the Catskill System, I was ordered by him to 
confer with the Commissioner of Water, Gas and Electricity, 
in order to arrive at some definite conclusion regarding the 
safeguarding of the watershed and the release of the 
guard under your command. 

I have conferred with Commissioner Hayes and Acting 
Chief Engineer Brush and have been informed by them 
that the arrangements for the future protection of the 
system are complete, and no doubt you will, in the near 
future, receive instructions to that effect. 

In view of this fact it will be unnecessary for representa- 
tives of the Police Department to make any further surveys 
of the Catskill system, or to consider any plans for the 
future protection of the system, as the Department of 
Water, Gas & Electricity will assume all responsibility and 
provide the necessary protection for same. 



I cannot close until I express an opinion regarding your 
work in connection with the guarding of the Catskill water 
system as viewed by New York policemen. The magnitude 
of your task and the great obstacles to be surmounted and 
difficulties placed in your path by nature, human beings 
and pro-Germans, can only be appreciated by a visit to the 
scene of your activities. 



THE LINE IMPREGNABLE 207 

The Police Department was very fortunate in their escape 
from the task of guarding the water system to which you 
were later assigned. The protection of this great territory 
of no miles in length, including the supervision and obser- 
vation of the many persons residing thereon whose loyalty 
and habits were a matter of concern to all thoughtful citi- 
zens, could only be accomplished by a force subject to 
military discipline and regulations and then only when 
commanded by an officer of your own undoubted ability, 
assisted by men such as those composing your staff. That 
you, within the short time allowed, were able to gather such 
a competent staff of officers and perfect the organization 
of your guard, which to our mind is above reproach and 
fitting tribute to your ability as an organizer and com- 
mander. New York City is very fortunate that your 
services were available at the opportune time. 

In any great crisis Providence seems ready to produce 
the proper man at the proper time, while the United States 
Government had Charles Schwab for building ships, New 
York City secured John B. Rose to guard its water system. 

That the establishment and erection of the camps neces- 
sary to protect the guard from the severe weather, the 
formation of a commissary department necessary to feed 
the men and the facilities required to transport the neces- 
sary food, clothing, medical supplies and fuel, in many 
instances over roads which are mere paths and difficult of 
progress for even those on foot, was successfully carried 
out, is difficult of comprehension to the ordinary mind. In 
our opinion you must have secured the aid of mountain 
burros or airships to accomplish this great task. 

That you were able to maintain a guard at all times, 
under conditions which existed last winter, when the low 
temperature caused suffering among persons living in 
steam-heated flats, is a great triumph for you, and while 
partly due to the system of inspection inaugurated by you, 
it is also due, I believe, to your personal interest and in- 
fluence as shown by your frequent visits to your sub- 
ordinates and inquiries among them as to their needs and 
comforts, and the prompt measures taken by you to correct 
any condition which would cause discomfort to your men. 

The command and supervision of a regiment distributed 
over a territory covering no miles was a more difficult 
proposition, in my opinion, than the guarding of a sector in 
France. While the men composing your guard were com- 



2o8 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

pelled to endure all sorts of hardships and privations, 
there was no hope of recognition and regard from a grate- 
ful people who at times would honor and encourage them 
with cheers and receptions; they were alone with their 
thoughts and fancies. That your guard were not found 
dead from exposure or deserted their regiment can only 
be attributed to the thought and care given them personally 
by the competent men composing your personal staff. 

I hope that the authorities of the State of New York 
will take some action which will result in recognition of some 
kind to all persons connected with your organization, that 
they be permitted to wear some device which will denote 
that they gave to this country their services in performance 
of a duty requiring as much sacrifice and fraught with dan- 
ger only excelled by those on the actual firing-line, and that 
some suitable tablet be erected to commemorate the vari- 
ous deeds of valor performed by the members of your 
guard, and also a monument erected on the top of the 
highest mountain on the Aqueduct line to call to the 
minds of all persons viewing it the quality of courage and 
fidelity necessary to protect this water system. 

Great credit is due you for the delivery of this property 
to the proper authorities with no reports, so far as I can 
learn, stating that you were compelled to report that 
damage had occurred to any part of such system while 
under your care. 

This is not a history, but a candid opinion, not intended 
to flatter you, but to show the appreciation of your worth 
to the City of New York, as expressed by Lieut. McCarthy 
Andy and myself. 

Yours sincerely, 
[Signed] Thomas V. Underhill, 
Inspector, Division of National Defense." 



Such was the Line Impregnable. 



EQUIPMENT 



'When we came I got a Springfield 

Thai was born in '61^ 
Then they peddled ammunition 

Never meant to fit the gun, 
Month ago I got an Enfield, 

Week ago I had a Krag; 
Now I've got a spiky Russian, 

But I ain't a-going to brag; 
'Cause there must be lots of Rosses 

And we ain't had "Flintlocks" yet. 
If they're loose and no one wants 'em 

They'll be sent up here; you bet!" 

— From "Seven-Bent Ballads. 



THIS chapter is a short one for a number of reasons. The 
first one is the best and needs no discussion. Equipment, 
like transportation and housing, furnished the First Provisional 
with a number of anxious hours; like the other problems of the 
regiment, it was solved a great deal better than could have been 
expected under war-time conditions affecting the market. 

And here, as elsewhere at a dozen points in this work, the regi- 
ment rises as a man to sing the praise of Col. J. Weston Myers, 
Chief Quartermaster of the State and in charge of the New York 
Arsenal. Had there been no friendly, hard-working, interested, 
genial Colonel Myers the lot of the First Provisional in the 
matter of equipment might have been many times harder than 
it was. Handicapped as he was by the lack of available funds 
and the condition of the war-materials market, Colonel Myers 
accomplished wonders for the men in the field. He could ap- 
preciate when few else could the stern necessity for breeches 
and the naked truth of the underwear problem. Perhaps no one 
else knew how near the regiment was forced to the use of O. D. 
paint on several occasions, or how nearly the barrel market came 
to being cornered in the extremes that prevailed at one time and 
another to prevent violation of the law regarding the exposure of 
flesh. 

It was his kind help, his good humor and his eternal loyalty to 
the regiment that helped the organization through many of its 
rough places, and there was no man not actually on the pay- 



2IO H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

roll that was more a part of the regimental family than the 
guardian spirit of that "venerable old pile" on Seventh Avenue. 

Some idea has been given of the condition in which the new 
State forces were left in the summer of 19 17 by the departure of 
the Federalized National Guard troops to Camp Wadsworth for 
Spartanburg. This condition applied equally to quartermaster 
and ordnance property, to medical supplies and the live stock. 
When the First Provisional took the field, Colonel Myers, on his 
own responsibility, had to dip freely into the Federal property 
of the old New York Division to meet the situation. Hesitation 
for authority would have meant more hardship than wash-bowl 
plates at Highland and Junior cots all over the line. It would 
have meant no rifles and no ammunition, to say nothing of the 
other deprivations that the troops would have been obliged to 
sustain had Colonel Myers been of the red-tape variety. 

But the equipment, even at its best, was not all that might 
have been desired for troops entering the field for protracted 
service under all weather conditions. At that time not a depot 
unit had woolens. All units entered the field in cotton and there 
was no woolen available until long after the frosts in the mountains 
were nipping the boys on post. 

No attempt will be made in this chapter to discuss the reasons 
for the lack of equipment, as speculation and retrospection in 
such a matter are of little avail. The instances cited are without 
intention of criticism and are merely recorded for the benefit 
of organizations entering the field in the future, and as an essential 
part of the full story of the First Provisional's career. 

Continuing on the matter of personal clothing. In the begin- 
ning this was limited to ponchos, shoes, hats, leggings, shirts, of 
which there was a proverbial shortage, and cotton breeches and 
blouses. 

Then came the colder weather and overcoats, but the overcoats 
were of the old blue-cape type that survived the civil war. They 
were warm, but they were too picturesque to suit the spirit of the 
line. Some of the units entering the field from home station in 
the late fall brought 0. D. overcoats with them, while the men 
on the line were wearing the blue. Not a sufficient number of 
O. D. overcoats could be purchased initially to equip all units 
of the line, and it was there that dissatisfaction started among the 
men on the subject of overcoats. 

How the men hated those blue "Valley Forgers," as they were 
called. There recurs the picture of a group of enlisted men from 
one of the blue-stricken sectors, on their way into the village for 
a night off, sneaking into the bushes at the roadside just at the 



EQUIPMENT 211 

village entrance, hiding there their blue markers and then braving 
the cold of the late fall in their uniforms throughout the evening, 
rather than to carry the much-cursed ''Forgers." 

A little dialogue from the darkness of the S-4 line gives an idea 
of the way in which the colonial blue overcoats were received by 
the men. 

It is night on the Aqueduct and the hand in front of the face 
is just as visible as the one in the pocket. A corporal and rehef 
are going out along the cut and cover. 

From the culvert a voice challenges in ordinary tone. This is 
before the days of the intensive challenge, and it is about relief- 
time, anyway. 

"Halt! Who's there.?" 

"General Washington and party." 

"Advance, General Washington, to be recognized. Halt! Ad- 
vance party! Say, what the hell you doing here; this ain't the 
Delaware River, it's the 'Duct. Where did you get that kimono?" 

The blue overcoats furnished a lot of fun, with all of the dis- 
satisfaction the men felt. And when the O. D.'s came they were 
the more appreciated. 

And then the sheep-lined overcoats, life-savers for the men on 
post, with their high collars and their thick, warm lining. The 
sheepskins were not numerous in the beginning, just about one 
for each post on some of the sectors, allowing one for the 
patrolling non-commissioned officer and another for the sector 
chauffeur. This presented a problem, and it was a serious one — 
that of transmitting skin or scalp infection from the man relieved 
to the man relieving. It finally simmered down to an order re- 
quiring the collar of the overcoat worn underneath the sheep- 
skin to be turned up between the sheepskin collar and the head. 

With the overcoats came the woolens, the winter caps and the 
gloves. The Red Cross supplied socks and sweaters for the regi- 
ment through the State Arsenal, and there were few men on the 
line who did not receive a sweater from some one besides. Lumber- 
men's arctics cared for the footgear problem, but not as well as 
the four-buckle overshoes which fell to some of the more fortu- 
nate sectors and which were issued during 1918. The felts in 
the lumbermen's arctics were found to wear out quickly and the 
men acquired a bad habit of wearing the felts around the barracks, 
to the consequent detriment of their feet. As an all-around pro- 
position the four-buckle overshoe was supreme for the work. 
The regiment never did have boots in any quantity. Several 
pairs of rubber boots could be found at every post, but they were 
purchased and not issued. 



212 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

And the winter cap. This was a Scotch cap design with ear- 
laps and a tie-string that made for a great deal of face-and-ear 
protection in extreme weather, but in other kinds of weather the 
men of the line evolved a headgear that was distinctly the First 
Provisional cap. By reversing the headgear, turning the peak 
up inside the cap, and tucking the strings out of sight, the men 
created a distinct bonnet type that at first glance might have been 
mistaken for one of the foreign army headgears except that it 
was O. D. The originators probably intended it as an imitation 
of the trench cap, but it was so distinctly different and at the 
same time so snappy in appearance that the men were allowed to 
wear them. Since it was a First Provisional creation and could 
under no condition be mistaken for an overseas hat, many of the 
line officers had caps converted and wore them with their insignia. 
It was the one distinctly First Provisional piece of wearing apparel 
that appeared in the regiment's history. 

Springfield 45-70, Springfield 1903, Krag-Jorgensen, Ross, and 
Russian Remington — these were the various types of rifles that 
at one time and another were used on the First Provisional's line. 
What the problem was in the case of supplying ammunition for 
such a mixture as this can be easily imagined, but the types were 
isolated by sectors or outposts and that made it a little easier. 

The old and new Springfields and the Krags came onto the 
line with the original regiment, only the 69th men having the 
new Springfield originally. The majority of the companies had 
Krags, with the old Springfields restricted to the Troop G sector, 
where the Syrians of Captain Westcott's command enjoyed the 
salute effect secured by firing one of them, although the kick 
was not so pleasant. 

New companies coming onto the line during the winter brought 
the Ross rifles then being distributed to the Ncvn^ York Guard, 
and at the same time there came from home station a few more 
of the new Springfields. Company B, Company D, and Company 
M were equipped with the latter type of arm. 

In July, 191 8, the Russian Remington was delivered along the 
line to all sectors except those with the new Springfields, which 
were the property of home station organizations. This stan- 
dardized the ordnance of the regiment to a large extent and the 
men were mightily interested in their new pieces with the vicious 
spiky bayonet attached. Because there were no bayonet-scabbards 
available, general orders were issued calling for the carrying of 
the rifle with the bayonet habitually fixed while on post. There 
was a certain psychological advantage to this not to be discounted, 
as the long rifleland bayonet gave the man on post a distinct 



EQUIPMENT 213 

sense of superiority over any one that might try to rush him. 
It resulted in fewer violations of the orders against carying ammuni- 
tion in the chamber or breech until after the first challenge. 

There never were issue revolvers on the line of the regiment 
except in isolated instances. Supply Company truck-drivers and 
a few of the line sergeants had side-arms, but it stopped there. The 
desire of the patrolling non-commissioned officer to carry side- 
arms resulted in the importation of such a large and varied col- 
lection of chance weapons that orders were issued against the 
holding or possessing of any arm not issued. This eliminated 
a danger ever present with all varieties of revolvers around men's 
bunks in barracks. 

The conservation and expenditure of ammunition is discussed 
in the chapter on the Impregnable Line, so will not be considered 
here except for the notation that frequent checks on the amount 
of ammunition at all posts held the regiment ready for emergency 
work at all times. 

Tentage is also spoken of in another chapter, and is, therefore, 
eliminated from consideration here, as is the Junior cot. There 
remain the Gold Medal cots, blankets, and living equipment 
generally. 

One of the biggest problems of the line was cot maintenance. 
A Gold Medal cot will, under ordinary wear, last quite a while; 
certainly a year, without ripping or breaking. But when two 
or three are gathered together in the same place and sit on the 
same cot while they talk it over, something is certain to happen 
to that cot in a short time. This is a barracks habit that is hard 
to break. Some officers tried to remedy it by putting hinged 
drop boards onto the foot of each cot, and some had benches made. 
There were not enough canvas stools to meet the situation and 
none were available. Until the last day of the regiment's history, 
cot breakage and rippage was a big problem, so big that the supply 
officer established a cot-mending department in charge of a ser- 
geant at Millwood for that work exclusively. Carelessness was, 
without doubt, chargeable for half of this ripping, but it was the 
daily habit of carelessness and not the maliciousness of barracks 
rows or cot fights that led to the great amount of cot breakage 
on the line of the First Provisional. The balance of the damage 
was due to the fact that the regiment, running true to form, 
had nowhere else to sit. 

Blankets were furnished by Colonel Myers in abundance, but 
company cornering led to difficulties. General instructions called 
for from three to four blankets per man, according to territory, 
but in some cases men had five to seven blankets apiece, while in 



214 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

others there were times when things were down to two blankets 
apiece, not adequate for protection from the cold and leading to 
a habit of sleeping in the clothes. 

In the beginning there were only the O. D. single blankets, 
with not a great deal of warmth to them. Then the double reds 
were issued from the recesses of the arsenal's storage places and 
the men almost fought for their warmth and comfort. Another 
issue was of hairy grays, warm and heavy, but a trifle rough on 
a man's skin, while more lately there issued the smooth grays, 
the blues and the blacks with the red stripe. As a result there 
were some sectors where the morning blanket airing looked like 
an advertisement for the Rainbow Division. The blanket situation 
was involved a bit by the establishment of hospitals and the 
consequent big demand during the influenza epidemic, but Colonel 
Myers met this in characteristic fashion by going into the open 
market and purchasing blue and white hospital blankets that 
saved the day. 

Field ranges from the old National Guard days were the only 
cooking facilities of the regiment at first, together with a few 
kitchen ranges. These were variously adapted to the barracks 
when the troops left tentage and in many cases ranges were pur- 
chased from company funds for the various posts and outposts. 
The heating facilities of the barracks have already been dis- 
cussed, but the heating of the tents has not. Sibleys were used 
along the entire line, and the men of the First Provisional learned 
from some night dashes with fire-pails that it does not pay to 
excite a Sibley with fuel and then go to bed leaving the draft 
hole uncovered. 

The mess equipment consisted of the blue-and-white agate- 
ware so well known to National Guard troops. The use of this 
ware agitated the medical ofiicers not a little, because of the 
possibilities of chipping, but there was not a case of cut stomach 
on the entire line while the troops were in the field. This was not 
because plates were not scraped, however. 

Both cooking and mess equipment was amplified by purchases 
from company funds. 

All of which fulfils the promise made at the beginning of this 
chapter concerning its length. In the compilation of this history, 
complaint or appearance of complaint has been studiously 
avoided, but there is no disguising the truth that the men of the 
First Provisional were for the greater part of the time without 
what even approached full equipment. And there were many 
times when mess kits were cups or bowls only, and when men 
were obliged to eat with their fingers because they had nothing 



EQUIPMENT 215 

else to eat with. Often they were improperly and scantily clad; 
often only improvised insoles of cardboard ripped from food 
cartons were between their feet and the mud of the cut and 
cover. And it was the terrific struggle for these things which 
should have been theirs by right of their very service that occu- 
pied so much of the efforts of headquarters in the early days of 
the regiment's history. 



THE TRAIL OF THE OCTOPUS 

THE blinking of a parlor lamp in coded ** International"; 
the flare of calcium in measured portions high on the ledges of 
Keg Mountain; the fiery tails of rockets that were never intended 
for any Independence Day celebration; the wanderings of the 
book agent, the cattle-buyer and the well-driller of peculiar 
accent; the night boomings of great low-gray cars of foreign make 
and close-covered bodies among the back roads of Westchester 
County; the real-estate purchases that could never be traced — 
of such was the trail of the Octopus in the lower valleys of the 
Hudson and along the line of the Aqueduct in the Great War. 

It was the trail, seemingly broad and seemingly plain, but it 
seldom led far. By how many of the great snaky arms of the 
German-American organizations in this country it was made, or 
with what ultimate purpose in view, will never be generally known. 
That it is even at this date known in large part only to a few is 
very certain. But since the time may come again when another 
Octopus may reach out with a thousand arms into the very 
heart of the nation, this is no time for the telling of how the 
trails were followed or what they revealed. Let there suffice a 
few word sketches to show the additional problem that the trail 
of the Octopus meant to the First Provisional, and how that 
problem was met. 

Ours is a wonderful nation — wonderful because of its belief 
that all other peoples of the world are ready to play the game on 
the same four-square principles that made the suave European 
diplomats smile — before the Great War. They used to smile 
about the American Secret Service, too, until it became pretty 
apparent that BernstorfF's private and confidential mail matter 
was being decoded and put onto President Wilson's desk daily, so 
that the President had it nearly as quickly as the Embassy of 
William Rex, and Almost Imperator. After the Mexican expose 
they stopped laughing entirely. The next time there is a war 
pointed this way, the country with malice in mind and on mis- 
chief bent is going to try to knock out a few of the stars on the 
U. S. S. S. team before it starts business. That will be very neces- 
sary, because if that is not done there won't be any business. 



THE TRAIL OF THE OCTOPUS 217 

But to return to the original remark that ours is a wonderful 
nation. The Great War proved that to a finish on the subject 
of German propagandism alone. Hardly a year before the 
''overt act" the German-American Alliance at its stated State 
meeting in Utica stood up and hammered President Wilson right 
out in chapel. Could you at that time make one of every four 
American citizens believe that there was German propagandism 
afloat in this country? You could not. It took nearly a year and 
several millions of feet of motion-picture film, with a few thousand 
reams of paper thrown in for good measure, to convince the United 
States of America that there was anything wrong with the Hun 
that had been planted in its borders, or who, because of his natural 
Hunnishness, had been available to the Imperial German Govern- 
ment as a part of its great net in this country. 

But when the country did come to, it opened its eyes wide 
and didn't even ask, "Where am I?" It knew. Result: the 
United States Secret Service had more volunteers than the regular 
army. Everybody watched everybody else. The thing got to be 
a matter of more or less hysteria in some sections and some in- 
nocent persons suffered. Perhaps it was the general, hearty and 
unanimous attitude of the G. A. P. on the subject of propaganda- 
spreaders that kept the head of the Octopus down and out of 
sight. But the arms went on wiggling — very quietly. Some- 
times they were only feelers. 

Imagine, if you can, a small, intricate, central wheel of control 
and transmission spinning rapidly at the World's Heart. Then 
consider a little larger wheel of many more cogs just outside it, also 
revolving rapidly. Outside still another and a greater wheel, 
moving more slowly, and still outside another, just turning and 
that is all. There you have the German espionage and offensive 
system in this country during the Great War. It is of the cogs 
of the second wheel that this chapter for the most part deals. 

A glimpse of the workings of the very inner wheel and of its 
connection to the outer wheels has been given in the chapter 
that tells of New York as the hot-bed of German propagandism. 
It will be noted how nicely the cogs fit. 

Parenthetically, and before continuing: In Idss than five years 
there will be a general move to discredit everything bearing on 
the subject of German-American activity on this side of the water 
during the Great War. It will be pointed out that had all the 
written matter on the subject been true the supposed hosts of the 
Kaiser in this country would have struck and struck hard. And 
many other things will be pointed out also. The government 
for various reasons will not take up the subject, nor will it prob- 



2i8 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

ably open the books of the Federal prisons or internment camps. 
And a peace-fed people may quite likely say, (i) "Well, we guess 
there was a lot of injustice done during the war." (2) "They were 
pretty loyal." 

(i) There was. Only the justice would have been more evenly 
distributed if the war had lasted long enough to locate them all. 

(2) They were. Lots of them really were. The rest were, too, 
for the most part. The cogs of the third and fourth wheels didn't 
move very fast. They couldn't. It wasn't healthy. Gustave 
Hundundbosche was a good citizen all right. It was healthy to 
be. Like Mr. Kipling's Yellow Dog, Dingo — he had to. 

From midsummer, 1917, until the great American smash on 
the Argonne front in 191 8, the territory in the vicinity of New 
York, the Hudson River, and the great training and embarkation 
camps clustering around the Metropolis was a center of Pan- 
German activity. It was inevitable that the guard work of the 
First Provisional could not stop at the line of the New York City 
property if it were to be successful and efficient. It must have 
advance information as to probable sources of trouble and real 
knowledge concerning hyphenated residents of the neighborhood, 
that its position might be at all times as secure as could be reason- 
ably expected. 

And it was this which brought about the early organization of 
the Map Detail in the fall of 1917, composed of members of the 
Veteran Corps, including Corp. Frederick G. Clapp, Cannoniers 
Henry E. Nasond, Clifford V. Smith, with D. L. Somerfield as 
draftsman, on the east side of the river, while Sergt. Henry D. 
Brandyce, now ordnance officer of the 8th C. A. C, was in charge 
of the entire work on the west side of the river. 

These units, forming the first organized arm of the regiment's 
Intelligence Service, covered the entire length of the Aqueduct 
from Hillview to Ashokan in the late summer and early fall of 
1917, making detailed sketch maps of every sector, sub-sector 
and vulnerable point, together with the notations of all houses 
and other buildings adjacent to the Aqueduct, with the composi- 
tion of the families living in them, their nationality and inclina- 
tions in the matter of the war, and as to whether or not they were 
naturalized. A sample of this work appears on the opposite page, 
without localization, because of the names which appear on it 
and the reports on them. 

It will be noted that the culverts and other vulnerable points 
are shown, together with such telephone poles as are necessary 
to indicate the exact location of the culverts by number. It will 
also be noted that the nature of the immediate terrain is shown, 




upper — Improvised culvert-screens made by the men of the line. 
Lower left — Small stick screen over culvert on E line, with call-box in 
background. Right — Exposed pipe at Tongore siphon, Company E 
sector. 







ll 



Friends of the Regiment 

Upper left — Mrs. Sarah H. R. Genet, mother of the late Edmond Genet 
of the Lafayette Escadrille and nurse at the Ossining Field Hospital. 
Right — Mrs. Imlay Bennet, whose services to the Intelligence Depart- 
ment of the regiment were invaluable. Lower left — Miss Mattler, the 
student-nurse, who nearly paid the final price at Newburgh Hospital in 
the early days of the influenza epidemic. Right — Mrs. Richard Keough,. 
volunteer stenographer from the National Women's League for Service,, 
serving at headquarters. 



THE TRAIL OF THE OCTOPUS 219 

although no attempt is made to give topography because of 
possible confusion resulting. 

When the First Provisional entered the field it was without 
maps of any kind. Three months later it was in possession of a 
full set of military intelligence prints showing the exact line from 
one end to the other, together with valuable information concern- 
ing the neighbors on the line. Each sector commander was pro- 
vided with a print of his line and neighborhood and charged with 
the duty of keeping the information thereon up to date. It was 
an easy matter to do this. In every neighborhood by careful 
elimination there could be found some loyal person, usually a 
woman with a son or a husband in the service, who would keep 
the sector commander informed concerning changes in personnel 
that his men might fail to get at the corner grocery or in the gossip 
that they picked up on the road. 

And the men were trained to use their eyes and ears; to re- 
member faces, and to keep watch on recurrent visitors. 

Increasing activity by enemy aliens in the spring and early 
summer of 1918 led to the definite establishment of an Intelli- 
gence Department in the regiment, so well organized that at no 
time did the officers who comprised it know certainly who the 
others in it were. Through the central control of the Commanding 
Officer who assigned the necessary tasks to the various individuals, 
it was flexible and of real use, without the undesirable atmosphere 
of melodramatic mystery. During the summer general instruc- 
tions were issued for a canvass and intelligence survey for two 
and a half miles on either side of the line. While this was never 
carried out in its totality, many of the sector commanders during 
this period extended this arm of their intelligence work, brought 
their territorial maps to date, and established card-index systems 
on questionable locations or persons. 

In the vicinity of Regimental Headquarters a five-mile circle 
was drawn with headquarters as a center, and mounted details, 
working, for the most part, after evening mess, with the aid of 
topographical maps, made a careful survey of the territory, in- 
cluding all deserted houses and other buildings, as well as those 
occupied. 

It was in the early summer that the Sheriff's Emergency Force 
of Westchester County, a mounted detachment of volunteers 
from private life, well armed and equipped, established field head- 
quarters in the vicinity of Peekskill and began operations directed 
toward the location and apprehension of alien enemies. Some of 
the cogs of the second wheel, emboldened by the absence of such 
a force hitherto, had been circulating propaganda and communi- 
15 



220 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

eating by a system of flash code from a point near Embarkation 
Point at Camp Merritt (Hook Mountain) across the Hudson in a 
northeasterly direction, and thence from signal station to signal 
station down south to some unknown receiving station at sea. 

These lights, which were so easy to see and so hard to locate, 
formed the greater outward manifestation of the efforts of the 
Kaiser's agents. It was only by triangulation and ceaseless en- 
deavor that their sources could be located, and when once these 
had been found, the very work necessary to find them had in 
most instances warned the aliens that their receiving stations 
and sending stations had been discovered and they made oflF. 

In the Keg Mountain case, which was brought to a focus by the 
Sheriff^'s Emergency Force, however, there was considerable of 
the tangible on which to work. A group of persons, many of 
whom may have been innocent participants in a huge camouflage, 
organized a society which, known as "Nature's Friends," estab- 
lished quarters on Keg Mountain. Without going too extensively 
into the details of the matter, this organization was given over 
largely to the deliberations of parties of German hyphenates who 
used week-end trips to the headquarters of the society as their 
excuse to get together. The cabalistic sign of the organization, 
found still on the rocks along the Keg Mountain road, directed 
the way of new-comers to the place where these ardent ** Friends" 
met. Keg Mountain as a sending station was well known to all 
who watched the trail of the Octopus, and the magnesium marks 
may still be seen on some of the ledges from which the dot-dash 
signals were sent. The Sheriff's Emergency Force, under Capt. 
Harry K. Jessup, broke up this rendezvous and cleaned out the 
mountain effectually, several arrests resulting. This drastic action 
put the fear of the Lord into the hearts of enemy aliens of the 
vicinity, but the line of signal stations was merely moved a few 
degrees. 

Deserted houses, or unused bungalows on property that could 
be bought by some intermediate, little-used summer estates, in 
deserted localities, and especially when these were at points of 
vantage, were used by the aliens in their work. In the vicinity 
of Lake Oscawana there was particular activity for some time, 
and this was handled quietly by Major Hodges for the regiment. 

Early in the summer all the forces having to do with alien 
activities in the Hudson Valley were co-ordinated by the United 
States Military authorities at West Point under Capt., later Major, 
James B. Ord. Capt. Theodore T. Lane represented the First 
Provisional Regiment at the initial conference at West Point. This 
prevented duplication of effort, discouraged hysteria and put the 



THE TRAIL OF THE OCTOPUS 221 

entire proposition on a military basis. Confidential bulletins, 
subheaded as to topics and carrying useful information, were 
periodically sent to the various agencies directed toward enemy 
alien activities, for their information and guidance. The following 
is an example of the matter contained in them: 

BOMBS 

The first case of attempted sabotage in this vicinity oc- 
curred during the last week of August, when an attempt 
was made to wreck one of the West Shore tunnels near West 
Point. 

A small nitro-glycerine bomb was used. It was an in- 
nocent-appearing paper tube about one inch in diameter 
and two or three inches long. If a passing train had deto- 
nated this bomb a serious wreck would have resulted. 

SUSPECTS 

The following are under investigation: 

Richard Roe Blauvelt, N. Y. Suspected of sig- 
naling information of troop move- 
ments. Military Intelligence follow- 
ing. 

John Doe Spring Valley, N. Y. Suspected of 

being pro-German. Has been re- 
ported as making seditious remarks. 

He is a on the N. Y. 

Naturalized. Intelligence office at 
West Point following. 

The Blank Company. .The ownership of this place is re- 
ported as being enemy alien. It is 
reported that many Germans are em- 
ployed in this plant. Sheriff's Emer- 
gency Force following. 

Mr. J Beacon, N. Y. American member of 

a religious sect which does not believe 
in war. This outfit is closely allied 
with the "Russelites," who neither 
believe in war nor in patriotism. 

Closely associated with Mr. J is 

Mrs. D of Marlboro, N. Y., who 

received orders from God, her com- 
manding officer, to go forth and pre- 
vent young men from fighting. Mr. 
Waite following. 



222 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

Such items, together with signal information, etc., comprised 
the bulletin. All information secured by the regiment regarding 
lights, enemy aliens or other proper intelligence matter, was, by 
request of Major Ord, forwarded to his office. 

While fully ninety-five per cent, of the *' signal" activities, 
so called, was pure war hysteria, it is certain that the other five per 
cent, was very real and very dangerous, and the regiment did its 
part in the separation of the false from the true. In this it was 
materially assisted by Mrs. Imlay Bennet, of Lake Mahopac, 
who, as a volunteer, covered, at the request of the Commanding 
Officer, a large territory north of the line in the summer resort 
section. Mrs. Bennet went about her work quietly but efficiently 
and her reports were clear and concise. She was largely respon- 
sible for the location of enemy aliens in her neighborhood and 
spent a great deal of time and effort in localizing light sources. 

The regiment co-operated in the summer of 1918 with the State 
Troopers in the arrest of a man who, though charged with being an 
enemy alien and a German reservist, proved his innocence and was 
released from custody. It was not the arrest, but the trail to 
which it led, that was of importance. By it a Bohemian-Germanic 
colony of so-called artists who had been engaged in sketches in 
the vicinity of the Aqueduct and whose activities it had been 
impossible to control was dispersed. 

And there is little doubt that only the constant presence of 
the counter agencies kept the head of the Octopus down. In one 
or two notorious German colonies not far from the headquarters 
of the regiment it was the custom during the periods of particular 
enemy activity to circulate freely with mounted patrols of two 
or three men. It is a hard matter to free the mind from two gen- 
erations of military control, and while the German mind and hand 
were ready enough to work in the usually free American rural 
atmosphere, the casual visit of the uniformed horsemen who now 
and again stopped for a drink of water, or who hammered past 
his door with a thud of hoof-beats during the night, was sufficient 
to stir in the Germanic mind that fear bred by the very regime 
which was at that time making its supreme effort to gain world 
control. 

Careful watch was kept on all contracts employing dynamite in 
the vicinity of the Aqueduct and contractors warned against 
leaving explosives where they might be stolen by some one bent 
on mischief. On one occasion a large cache of dynamite was 
discovered in a patch of woods near the Aqueduct, ownership of 
which was never established, although the place was watched 
carefully. 



THE TRAIL OF THE OCTOPUS 223 

From first to last the work of following the trail of the Octopus 
was, in so far as the regiment was concerned, prevention rather 
than punishment. Keeping its own line clear, it passed on all 
other necessary information to agencies which followed it to a 
conclusion of one sort or another. 



HOUSING 

NEXT to food and drink it is man's first need that he be shel- 
tered from the elements. Given this protection, he can 
manage to go without clothes, but protection is necessary, and 
as proof that it is a fundamental of life, there is no beast or bird 
that does not find shelter of some kind. 

It is a long cry from the tree-nest and the stone cave of our 
progenitors to the huge cave-man buildings of the present age. 
To prove that the war game is a fundamental passion of the human 
race, observe, however, the tent. Since the dawn of time men 
have lived in tents — first rude skin shelters, later the black tents 
of the nomad, then the pavilions of the crusaders. And the 
tent, because of its structure, has survived the advances of the 
ages. In so far as the housing of the soldier is concerned, the 
primitive cave of winter shelter has given way to the barracks, 
but the tent, that was the prehistoric man's summer quarters, 
is still the summer shelter of the soldier. In the case of the First 
Provisional it came very near to being his winter shelter, too. The 
tent is primitive, and so on the housing question of the First 
Provisional the tentage of the command will be considered first. 

The original tentage of the regiment — that issued at Peekskill 
and Lambert Farm — was white, the vintage of '98, conicals, 
officers' walls and hospitals. It had been beaten by the rain 
and winds of many encampments, and it had seen its best days 
in the Paleozoic Age of National-Guardism. Some of the ex- 
periences that the men of the regiment had wiiih it have been 
related in the story of mobilization days. It was not first-grade 
material and the lack of tent floors added to its drawbacks. 
There were few companies of the line that had tent floors prior 
to the fall of 19 18, simply because authority could not be secured 
for the purchase of lumber. 

A few O. D. storage and supply tents remained at Peekskill 
when the New York Division left the State, clearing with it the 
O. D. pyramidals and other tentage that had been Division 
property, but there was scarcely sufficient of the O. D. tentage to 
furnish storage room and office room for headquarters and the 
Supply Company of the new regiment. 



HOUSING 225 

The greater share of the line tentage was composed of the 
conicals, and so it remained until the summer of 1918, when O. D. 
pyramidals nearly enough in number to meet the regiment's 
needs were distributed. And these the commanding officer on his 
own authority ordered floored at the time of the influenza out- 
break. 

At headquarters the office tents were sided, and in some cases 
framed front and back, with windows at either end. In the case 
of the officers' walls these were first sided, then framed and finally 
taken off of many entirely, leaving a tent-shaped shack that was 
roofed and tar-papered, because these, like the other tents, were 
too aged to resist the elements unaided. The regiment never had 
shelter tents. 

This, in a short-cut fashion, describes the housing conditions 
of the regiment as far as tentage was concerned. But the organ- 
ization's biggest proposition was barracks. 

Barracks caused more excitement for the First Provisional than 
any other question, unless it was transportation. In the begin- 
ning, the period of service on the Aqueduct was doubtful, and so 
for a few weeks, while the organization was in what Lieut. Weed 
has termed the melting-pot stage, the winter housing question 
was not brought up. 

But as soon as it became apparent that the regiment was in 
all likelihood in the field for the duration of the war, and that 
some one would be guarding the Aqueduct until the end of the 
war, anyway, Colonel Rose called the matter of barracks to the 
attention of the Adjutant-General. 

This was on September i8th, and the Adjutant-General directed 
Major James A. Blair, Jr., attached to his office, to confer with 
the officials of the City of New York regarding barracks. 

Prior to that preliminary steps had been taken with the city. 
Since the commands on the western side of the river were certain 
to feel the cold weather before those on the eastern side, the 
commanding officer of the regiment had on Sept. 3rd directed 
Major Charles J. Lamb to make a report on the needs of the 2nd 
Battalion. This was submitted on the following da^^, and on the 
6th of September a letter was forwarded from the Commanding 
Officer to the Chief Engineer of the Department of Water Supply, 
Gas & Electricity, City of New York, making formal applica- 
tion for the assignment of an engineer or architect representing 
the City of New York. The representative of the department 
was to proceed with the Commanding Officer of the regiment and 
a medical officer to the points indicated in Major Lamb's report 
to determine how winter conditions could best be met. 



226 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

When Sept. 24th had arrived and there had been no action, 
Colonel Rose, in company with Major Blair, visited Mayor John 
Purroy Mitchel, being referred by him to Comptroller Pendergast. 

There ensued a conference at which Arthur E. Hadlock, Deputy 
Comptroller, Acting Corporation Counsel Louis H. Hahlo, Chief 
Auditor of Accounts David E. Kemlo and the two officers were 
present. 

At this conference Colonel Rose pointed out that time was 
the big factor to consider in the erection of barracks. Since 
advertising for bids and procuration of labor for the building 
of the barracks made the matter an almost impossible one for the 
city to handle, the responsibility for the entire construction was 
assumed by Colonel Rose and he was given full written authority 
to proceed with construction, the city to pay the bill and become 
owner of the buildings upon the withdrawal of the troops. 

At all times of the regiment's need some man was found within 
the regiment itself who met that need. Major Hodges, as officer 
in charge of construction, had general supervision of the matter of 
barracks, but he was not a builder. The regiment turned to 
Sergt. (later Lieut.) Herbert L. Lockwood, famous in the steel 
world, who had served with the regiment in the V. C. A. during 
mobilization period, and back to the ranks came Lieut. Lockwood 
to plan and carry out the construction of the First Provisional's 
barracks. 

Lieut. Lockwood, after a survey, decided that the unit system 
would best meet the conditions of haulage and unskilled labor 
with which the barracks must contend in their erection. He 
finally submitted plans calling for the construction of 2,520 feet 
of barracks buildings 20 feet wide in seven-foot multiples for the 
men of the First Provisional Regiment. At least that is what the 
total length of the buildings would have been had they all been 
placed end on end. 

The sectional building was a result of careful study and ap- 
plication and was immediately approved by Major James A. 
Blair and Capt. J. Hayden Bates upon their inspection of the 
barracks situation. 

Lockwood's first letter is H, and that H meant hustle for the 
regiment. One week from the time he entered the field he had 
his plans, specifications and bills of particulars ready. Cutting 
red tape, he saved the city right and left by the purchase of 
raw lumber in huge quantities (between 350,000 and 400,000 feet 
altogether) and hauled it by barges to Lord & Burnham's mill 
at Irvington, where he had made such representations that prac- 
tically the entire plant was turned over to him for his use. This 



HOUSING 227 

firm would only accept 5 per cent., which did not more than com- 
pensate them for wear and tear on their property. Two weeks 
from his entry into the field, Lieut. Lockwood had his lumber at 
Lord & Burnham's mill and the milling started. 

The basic principle of the barracks, as Lieut. Lockwood ex- 
plained it to the men of the regiment in The Watchdog at the time, 
was the design of a unit capable of sleeping four men. The bar- 
racks to accommodate the vari-sized detachments at the posts 
and outposts were made possible by the indefinite extension of 
the four-man-unit idea to meet the needs of the particular point 
where the building happened to be located. Thus: 

A building for 10 men and 50 men was identical in cross- 
section, differing only in length and its interior arrangements. 
The gable ends were standard and furnished in sections, ready to 
bolt into place. The side walls were furnished in the same man- 
ner in 7 X 7 sections, notched to receive the rafters. All other 
parts were furnished cut to length, drilled and notched, except the 
floor and roof boards, which were furnished in random lengths 
and laid in the field to tie the building together longitudinally. 
All parts were bundled and marked and the entire success of the 
barracks construction after it passed through the mill stage de- 
pended on the care used in the erection of corner posts, side and 
center posts, footing pieces, sills and joists. A complete set of 
prints and directions accompanied every barracks building for the 
benefit of the men who were to do the work. 

The side section was furnished with a door or window or with- 
out either, according to the need of the building. The standard 
army requirement of a window to each two cots was thus made 
possible without change of any interior arrangement. 

Barracks walls were of double boarding, with water-proofed 
building paper between them. The roof was covered with heavy 
roofing paper, and the floors were of tongue-and-groove boards. 
The gable ends in the dormitories were furnished without doors 
to insure the comfort of the men. Interior partitions were arranged 
to suit local conditions. 

The specifications and material tables called for a total of 
from 8 to 10 tons of nails and a car-load of roofing paper, in addi- 
tion to the material already described. 

Some discussion as to the necessary authority for barracks 
construction held back the actual delivery of the material to the 
sectors until Nov. 9th, when five additional motor-trucks were 
received from the State Arsenal by Captain De Garmo. Major 
Hodges, Lieut. A. T. McKinstry and Lieut. Arthur Wynne were 
detailed to the work, and later Lieut. Harvey N. Smith, of Sector 



228 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

N-4 was on the barracks detail. During the period between the 
first delivery of lumber to the Lord & Burnham mill and the 
actual delivery of barracks material to the sectors, Lieut. Lock- 
wood was in all places at once. He used his own trucks to haul 
building material from seaboard to the Lord & Burnham mill, 
when he found that he could not secure railroad shipments in 
time, and did this gratis. He was indefatigable and, despite all 
of the worries that came to him in the course of his work, was 
always sunny and smiling. 

When the delivery to the line began a detail was sent to Irving- 
ton for the loading, and it was during the period in which this 
detail operated that Mrs. William Usher Parsons, of Irvington, 
did so much for the regiment in the care of these men. In ad- 
dition to her hospitality, Lieut. Lockwood spent a great deal of 
his own money, for which he was never reimbursed. 

Between Nov. 9th and Dec. 13th, when a terrific blizzard 
blocked the roads and prevented the building of barracks, there 
were 35 working-days, including Sundays, which, multiplied by 
the number of trucks, gave a total of 175 truck days. Owing 
to the condition of the trucks, however, the Supply Officer's 
records showed that loi truck days were lost through breakdowns 
and repair time. Rail delivery was impossible, due to the geo- 
graphical factor, which again entered the regiment's history at 
this point. 

On Feb. 7th the following condition of barracks construction 
prevailed in the regiment: 

ON THE SECTORS WEST OF THE HUDSON RIVER 

Headquarters at Davis Corners; 

New barracks, in addition to B. W. S. building, erected and 
occupied. 
Headquarters at Atwood: 

New barracks, 80 per cent, completed, but not entirely ready 
for occupancy. 
Headquarters at the Peak: 

New barracks, in addition to B. W. S. building, 50 per cent, 
completed. 
Outpost at Shaft 5: 

Remodelled B. W. S. locker-house, occupied. 
Outpost at Shaft i : 

Remodeled B. W. S. locker-house, occupied. 
Outpost just south of Bonticou Tunnel: 

Remodeled B. W. S. locker-house, material delivered on 
ground. 



HOUSING 229 

Headquarters Camp, Mountain Rest road: 

New barracks erected, and occupied. 
Outpost at Shaft 6, Walkill Valley: 

Addition to B. W. S. locker-house, erected and occupied. 
Headquarters at Ireland Corners: 

New barracks, in addition to B. W. S. building, erected and 
occupied. 
Outpost at Culvert 76: 

New barracks, in addition to B. W. S. locker-house, erected 
and occupied. 
Headquarters at Sherwood Corners: 

Remodeled B. W. S. barn, occupied. 
Headquarters at Cocheton Turnpike: 

New barracks to be erected, material in transit. 
Outpost at Vail's Gate: 

Addition to B. W. S. locker-house, erected and occupied. 

ON THE SECTORS EAST OF THE HUDSON RIVER 

New barracks, erected and occupied, at Cold Spring, Break 
Neck outpost and Indian Brook outpost. 
Outpost at Garrison: 

B. W. S. building, remodeled and occupied. 
Outpost at Sprout Brook: 

B. W. S. building, remodeled and occupied. 
Outpost at Cat Hill: 

New barracks, erected and occupied. 
Headquarters at Crompound road: 

Barracks, 50 per cent, erected. 
Outpost at Field Street: 

Barracks, not yet delivered. 
Headquarters at Scribner's Farm: 

B. W. S. building, remodeled and occupied. 
Outpost at South Croton Lake Siphon: 

New barracks, not yet delivered. 
Outpost at New Croton Dam: 

New barracks, not yet delivered. 
Outpost at Bamer's Corners: 

New barracks, not yet delivered. 
Headquarters at Millwood: 

New barracks, erected and occupied. 
Outpost at North End of Millwood Tunnel: 

B. W. S. building, remodeled and occupied. 
Outpost at Washburne Farm: 

New barracks, not yet delivered. 



230 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

Outpost at Harlem Railrpad Siphon: 

New barracks, not yet delivered. 
Outpost at Pleasantville Treating Plant: 

New barracks, erected and occupied. 
Headquarters at Pleasantville: 

New barracks, erected and occupied, in addition to B. W. S. 
building, remodeled and occupied. 
Outpost at Kensico Influent: 

New barracks, not yet delivered. 
Outpost at Kensico Effluent: 

New barracks, not yet delivered. 
Outpost at Kensico Chlorinating Plant: 

New barracks, erected and occupied. 
Outpost at North Kensico Siphon-house: 

New barracks, 75 per cent, erected. 
Outpost at South Kensico Siphon-house: 

New barracks, not yet delivered. 
Outpost at Eastview Spillway: 

New barracks, erected and occupied. 
Outpost, y^ mile south of Eastview Spillway: 

New barracks, erected and occupied. 
Outpost, y^ mile north of Elmsford Siphon: 

New barracks, erected and occupied. 
Outpost at Ardsley, Harts Corners road: 

New barracks, not yet delivered. 
Headquarters at Underwood Avenue: 

New barracks, erected and occupied. 
Outpost at Piatt Avenue: 

New barracks, not yet delivered. 
Headquarters at Jackson Avenue: 

B. W. S. building, remodeled and occupied. 
Outpost at South Fort Hill Siphon-house: 

New barracks, erected and occupied. 
Outpost at North Brindmoor Siphon-house: 

New barracks, not yet delivered. 
Outpost at Inlet House, Hillview Reservoir: 

New barracks, delivered, but not yet erected. 
Outpost at Outlet House, Hillview Reservoir: 

New barracks, delivered, but not yet erected. 
Outpost at Shaft 9, i>^ miles north of No. Tarrytown, New Croton 
Aqueduct: 

B. W. S. building, remodeled and occupied. 
Outpost at Gate House, New Croton Aqueduct, Ardsley-on- 
Putnam: 



HOUSING 231 

New barracks, not yet delivered. 
Outpost at Chlorinating Plant, New Croton Aqueduct, Yonkers 
Avenue : 

B. W. S. buildipg, remodeled and occupied. 

On Dec. 15th there were two officers and fifteen men quar- 
tered in tents. At the Harlem siphon near Pleasantville a dis- 
used siding was connected, through arrangement with the New 
York Central, and a boarding-car placed on the siding as barracks 
until the barracks could be built. At other points buildings were 
loaned to the regiment, in one instance men sleeping in the base- 
ment of a school-house. 



Before Jan. ist all men were out of the snow. 

Of the trials and hardships of barracks construction by un- 
skilled labor, of the long hauls over mountain roads, and of the 
cold, cheerless work of erection and finishing the buildings while 
the thermometer was dropping at winter's touch and the work 
of to-day might be buried under the snowdrifts of to-night; the 
provoking blunders made by the inexperienced, and of the natural 
cussedness of inanimate material — ^chapters could be written that 
were better left unwritten. The main point is that the barracks 
were built, though at what cost of anxiety, hard work, and hard- 
ship for those charged with their construction no one but those 
involved in the actual building will appreciate. 

The barracks were heated throughout by stoves, which were 
purchased for the purpose in graduated sizes for the varied uses 
to which they were put. With all of the care used in the prep- 
aration of the structures, they were none too warm, and in the 
mountains the men suflFered severely on some of the coldest nights. 
On one occasion the thermometer in the Bonticou barracks regis- 
tered ten degrees below zero one morning. That was too cold for 
comfort. Lack of siding to keep the wind from blowing under the 
barracks was remedied after the first winter in all cases. 

The Cat Hill barracks and the Field Street barracks were the 
last to be constructed in the winter and spring of 1918. In the 
fall of 191 8 barracks were erected at Glenville outpost on the 
Company I line, at St. Andrews on the Company G line, and at 
Little Britain Turnpike on the Machine Gun Company's sector. 
A barracks was also begun at Brown's Station, but was discon- 
tinued when the armistice went into efi^ect. During the fall, 
authority was given for the lijning of all barracks with beaver 
board and expenditure necessary to put the buildings into repair. 



232 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

The cost of this work, as well as the additional barracks, was 
charged against the original appropriation of ^85,000 for housing 
for the men of the regiment, secured from the City of New York 
by Colonel Rose. 

Reference to the sectional maps of the First Provisional 
line will show the location of each builditig used by the regiment. 
Wherever possible, B. W. S. buildings were used, often in conjunc- 
tion with the barracks buildings. Although there were B. W. S. 
houses at Olive Bridge, Atwood and the Peak, for instance, they 
were in no case large enough to accommodate the men at the posts, 
and were used as administration buildings for the larger part 
while the barracks served as dormitories. 

The headquarters of the 2nd Battalion, New Paltz, was origi- 
nally located at the Tamney Hotel, and later on Chestnut Street, 
where a private house was rented together with the big lot sur- 
rounding it; that was used as a supply depot. 

The offices of the battalion were on the lower floor, eating-rooms 
in the basement, and the quarters of the various officers on the 
upper floor. It was a comfortable building and its location made 
it easily accessible from all points of the line on the western side 
of the rilver. Main highways running out of New Paltz direct 
to Kingston and Newburgh, and back roads that tapped F. H. 
and G, made it an ideal location for battalion headquarters. 

During the epidemic of mumps referred to in the chapter on 
health, a house was rented on Chestnut Street, New Paltz, as a 
field hospital, and was maintained for some time. 

Housing with reference to Regimental Headquarters has already 
been discussed. The latter days of headquarters history were 
made pleasant and comfortable through the generosity of V. 
Everit Macy, and the establishment in the old Holbrook School 
at Ossining made for happy memories of the last three months of 
field life. It seemed like a long jump from the homeless head- 
quarters organization that perched on Crow Hill to the splendid 
establishment in the Macy estate, with lights, steam heat and 
abundant space for every one. To the public-spirited citizen 
responsible for the change the officers of the Headquarters Stafl?" 
will never be able to express their appreciation sufficiently, nor 
to Mr. Vincent Phelps, Mr. Macy's manager, who made things 
so comfortable with his co-operation. 

Headquarters of the ist Battalion was, for the large part, located 
where the Regimental Headquarters were, except during the time 
that Captain Roche had command of the battalion, when they 
were transferred to the B. W. S. engineer's house at the Peekskill 
Hollow road, headquarters of Company B. 



HOUSING 233 

On the 3rd Battalion's line the headquarters was at Valhalla, 
in a concrete house at the base of the dam and about two hundred 
yards west of it, and the same distance east of the Valhalla railroad 
station. The Company M post was located first in an old city 
building on the same street and later in the engineers' building 
next to it, a more commodious affair. 

Company posts, or "headquarters," as they were known, 
changed but little on the line; A was always at Millwood, first 
the gray barn at the left of the road leading to Chappaqua and 
later in the barracks. B was always at the B. W. S. engineers' 
building on the Peekskill Hollow road. C occupied first tentage 
and later barracks on Gallows Field near Cold Spring. D was 
first in a yellow B. W. S. house which burned and later in barracks 
erected on the site of the former house just south of Peekskill 
on the Crompound road near the Paur's Inn turn. E was at 
Atwood first and later at Olive Bridge. F was first on the old 
Company E ist Infantry camp site under tentage on the side of 
the mountain above New Paltz, and later in barracks at Camp 
Fort Orange on the Lake Mohonk Road. G shifted about consid- 
erably, being first under canvas when the sectors were divided, 
later at the yellow B. W. S. building on the upper end of the sector, 
and known as Camp Gibbs, Camp Decker and Camp Johnson in 
turn, and finally at Sherwood Corners. H was always at the Peak 
in a B. W. S. building that was augmented by barracks. I post 
was from the first in the B. W. S. building on the White Plains 
road near Elmsford. K headquarters was first divided between 
Fort Hill road B. W. S. building and an old shanty at the inter- 
section of the Aqueduct and Tuckahoe road, but for the greater 
part of the time at the B. W. S. house on Palmer Avenue near the 
Bryn Mawr station. L headquarters was maintained consistently 
at Fort Hill road after sector S-9 was divided and the company 
boundaries established. The Machine Gun Company headquar- 
ters was first at Vail's Gate in a B. W. S. house. This later became 
an outpost, and headquarters was at Little Britain, some of the 
time in the Brynes Hotel and some of the time in barracks. 

Supply Company headquarters was first under tentage north 
of the Croton Lake road at Millwood, then in the green building 
south of the railroad tracks, later at Peekskill State Camp and 
finally at Ossining. The matter of hospital housing is discussed 
in the chapter on the health of the regiment. 



PAPER-WORK OF THE REGIMENT 

IT is the bane of every line officer's life; the hounding spectre 
that is omnipresent, shouting from his desk until appeased, 
and reinforced by every mail. To nine of every ten officers, 
army paper-work is a bugbear, to be relegated to an efficient non- 
commissioned officer and to be kept as little in evidence as possible. 

But if there is one establishment where records must be clear, 
absolute and flawless, it is the military establishment, and so 
paper-work, with all the precedents, the regulations and the orders 
that have made it an institution, is of necessity a part, and a very 
large part, of the life of any organization, whether in the field 
or at home station. 

The rules of army paper-work had been, through long years of 
garrison duty in the nation, and years of home-station service or 
concentrated encampments in the State, so molded and formed 
that they were predicated on such service. There has never been 
a time ih the State's history, prior to the occupation of the New 
York Aqueduct, when a Form 44 or consolidated morning-report 
could not be taken direct from the morning report books of the 
various companies comprising a regiment in the field. Six of 
every ten questions arising in the course of a regiment's day could 
be answered by the officers concerned in personal conferences with 
the commanding officer, the adjutant, or the supply officer. Be- 
cause of the very nature of the United States garrisons, and of 
the grooved routine of armory life, few new conditions arose that 
must be met with orders. The very permanency of personnel 
both in the regular army and the National Guard held the paper- 
work of an organization to minimum. In peace times all National 
Guard paper-work in a regiment could be done by the adjutant, 
the regimental sergeant-major and a clerk. 

Such were the standards of paper-work at the entry of this 
country into the war. The text-books of the subject did not go 
beyond these standards; did not contemplate conditions arising 
in a regiment strung along one hundred miles of territory on active 
service, with new conditions to meet daily, and with a constantly 
shifting personnel due to entry of men into overseas service. 

And so to the First Provisional Regiment upon its entry into the 
field there was left the task of blazing its own way in this phase 



PAPER-WORK OF THE REGIMENT 235 

of its administrative work. Because at some future time another 
organization may face the same problems and batter its adminis- 
trative head against the same obstacles, it is the endeavor to give 
here, at the risk of wearying, an idea of those obstacles, the 
ways in which they were met, and the results of the solutions 
found for them. 

It is probable that no regiment in actual guard service ap- 
proaches the paper-work of the First Provisional Regiment in 
volume alone. To give an idea of the volume here are some salient 
facts connected with the paper- work of the First Provisional 
Regiment. 

The correspondence in the Adjutant's office alone filled twelve 
steel vertical filing-cases in eighteen months. 

An average force of seven persons was employed in the Adju- 
tant's office from shortly after the entry of the regiment into the 
field until just before its service terminated. Of these four were 
stenographers for a greater share of the period. 

At one time in the regiment's history the daily output of the 
Adjutant's office was 125 pieces of mail-matter, and at no time 
did the daily total fall below 50 pieces of mail-matter. 

On one date ten orders, circulars and bulletins were issued from 
the Adjutant's office, some of two pages in length. 

A total of 48 general and 104 special orders were issued from 
August to December 31st, 1917. A total of 48 general and 224 
special orders were issued during the year 191 8. These are regi- 
mental orders alone and do not include regimental circulars and 
bulletins or the orders and bulletins issued by battalion head- 
quarters. 

More than 40 varieties of reports were required monthly by 
General Orders 44, 1918, of the various officers of the regiment. 

In the beginning of the organization's history. Colonel Rose 
expressed the determination to keep paper-work at a minimum, 
and it was with this idea in mind that the staff and line officers 
proceeded throughout. But an increasiing number of reports, as 
well as an increasing volume of correspondence and written action, 
pushed the amount of paper-work to a size that but few of the 
officers of the regiment themselves appreciated until shown. 

Perhaps it is well that an officer without experience in routine 
armory paper-work was selected for the position as Adjutant. It 
may be equally true that the Commanding Officer, sensing that 
new trails must be blazed in this line of effort as well as elsewhere, 
purposely chose one who would not be so greatly influenced by the 
hidebound rules and precepts of precedent in the administrative 
work of a regiment. 
16 



236 H-A-L-TT ! - WHA-ZAA ? 

To one looking from the outside in the first few weeks of the 
regiment's history, the Adjutant's office must have been a humorous 
affair. Housed ih a big brown storage-tent on the shoulder of 
Headquarters Hill, its portals open to every frolicking breeze that 
scrambled papers promiscuously, unlighted save for barn lanterns 
with tin-plate reflectors, and equipped in its beginnings with one 
typewriter and one borrowed table, six box-files and a hotel- 
menu duplicator, the Adjutant's office was a meager aff"air. 

And the men who made up the office — Acting Sergt.-Major 
Herbert W. Speares, drawn from Troop H of the ist Cavalry, of 
whom much is told in the early history of the regiment's mobili- 
zation, a good stenographer, general office man and a steadying 
influence at all times, untiring and smiling; Lieut. Clarence 
Bechtol of the old First, who knew something of company paper- 
work; Corporal Julian Jackson, a stenographer, son of the com- 
manding officer of the Oneonta company that was made Head- 
quarters Company; and Private Charles Blizard of the Oneonta 
company, chosen for his red hair and his smile as he toiled with 
a shovel in a latrine pit on the first day of his arrival. This was 
the office force. 

The sum total of paper-wgrk knowledge enjoyed by the per- 
sonnel was small enough, and no one outside the office had time 
to give help. For the fundamentals the force depended on the 
Regulations and "Moss on Paper-work." For the adaptation 
of the same to the situations that constantly arose there was 
nothing to depend on except personal adaptability and good judg- 
ment. How much the little blue book written by Major James A. 
Moss of the United States Army meant in those first days may 
be gathered from an incident that occurred one morning shortly 
after the entry of the regiment into the field. 

The Adjutant was at his desk when the sergeant-major came 
down from mess, without his usual morning beam, and immedi- 
ately began rummaging under the blankets that were used to 
cover all tables with papers every night. Presently he chuckled. 

"I dreamed last night we lost Moss," he said, holding it above- 
head, "and the thing stuck with me so this morni;ig that I got 
worried, and here he is." 

Perhaps the first big problem met by the Adjutant's office was 
in the matter of filing system. At first the correspondence-book 
method in vogue in the army and prescribed by State regulations 
was used, but it soon became apparent that the volume of corres- 
pondence would swamp the correspondence-book method with 
the force available to do filing work. Some scheme had to be 
adopted which would make possible the care of the regimental 



PAPER-WORK OF THE REGIMENT 237 

files, together with other office work, by one man. It was from 
Sergt. Edmond J. Dixon, Q. M. C, who later became sergeant- 
major of the 1st Battalion, that the Adjutant first secured infor- 
mation concerning the dual-number filing system in use at the State 
Arsenal. This system, adapted and expanded to meet the needs 
of the First Provisional's work, was put into operation shortly 
after the ist of September and continued in use, with only a few 
additions, until the regiment left the field. 

It consisted of assigning arbitrarily numbers to destinations 
or sources of letters. The ist Battalion headquarters was Roman 
I, and the 2nd BattaUon headquarters, Roman II. Since there 
were six sectors on the north side of the Hudson and nine on the 
south side, the first 15 of the Arabic numerals were used to desig- 
nate them in geographical order. Captain Broadbent's sector 
was, for instance, N-i, while Captain Johnson's sector was S-i 
and Lieut. Smaney's sector, S-9B. The Adjutant-General's office 
was the next consecutive number, sihce it was the next largest 
source or destination for correspondence, and was arbitrarily 
assigned the subdivision number 16; 17 was the State Arsenal. 

Then subjects were similarly assigned numbers. At that time 
the dogs of the Airedale Patrol were being brought onto the 
line, and so dogs happened to be No. i; Officers' Commissions 
was 2; Disposition of troops, 3; and so on. 

So that a letter to Sector North i on the subject of Dogs would 
be filed, Ni-i; a letter to the Adjutant-General or from the Ad- 
jutant-General on the subject of Commissions would be marked 
and filed, 16-2. The correspondence was filed under the various 
numbers chronologically and there was never a time in the history 
of the office when a piece of correspondence on any subject could 
not be found within a few minutes, providing that the subject 
and the approximate source or destination were known. At the 
conclusion of each six months the files for that period were closed. 
It was a most satisfactory system. 

There was this one drawback to it, but the same drawback 
would have prevailed in any system used by the regiment. It 
has been stated that the records of a military establishment are 
vital. To the First Provisional Regiment the careful keeping of 
its records meant life or death as its later history proved. The 
strength of the regiment's position was in its written record, 
and in the mass of documentary evidence which it could produce 
from its files to show how well it had lived up to its obligations 
and how those obligations had been met by other agencies. 

It was an early established rule in the Adjutant's office that 
one person must be held personally responsible for the files and 



238 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

filing, and this task fell to Private Charles Blizard, in addition 
to his other duties, which were copying orders, caring for incom- 
ing and outgoing mail, and doing his share of office police. How 
well the files of the regiment were kept may be judged from this. 
The First Provisional Regiment always had its case ready in 
documentary form. 

Following is a copy of the filing chart in use during 19 17, which 
will give an idea of what it embraced. When it is considered that 
the subjects were so grouped that only 64 subjects and 46 sub- 
divisions were used to cover the multiform correspondence of the 
regiment, the efficacy of the system will be at once apparent. 

SUBDIVISIONS 

I. 1st Battalion 

II. 2nd Battalion 

III. 3rd Battalion 

N-1.2.3.4.5.6.6A 
Sectors: 

S-i.2.3.4.5.6.7.8.9. 

16. Adjutant-General's Office 

17. State Arsenal 

18. Col. John B. Rose 

19. Lieutenant-Colonel 

20. Adjutant, ist Prov. Regt. 

21. Disbursing Dept. 
' 22. Medical Dept. 

23. Supply Dept. 

24. Transportation Dept. 

25. Board of Water Supply 

26. City of New York — Mayor 

27. Headquarters Company 

28. 1st Infantry, N. Y. G. 

29. 3rd Infantry, N. Y. G. 

30. I St Cavalry, N. Y. G. 

31. Troops Available 

32. Officers Available 

33. Conferences 

34. Requisitions 

35. Receipts 

36. Telephones 

37. loth Infantry, N. Y. G. 

38. Court 

39. Historical 



PAPER-WORK OF THE REGIMENT 



239 





40. Electric Light and Power 




41. Log 








42. V. C.A. 








43. Circulars 








44. Red Cross 








45. Extra Service 






46. Provisional Brigade 




SUBJECTS 




I. 


Dogs 


32. 


Transportation 


2. 


Commissions (Officers) 


33. 


Supply 


3. 


Disposition of Troops 


34. 


Water Supply 


3A 


. New Troops 


35- 


Desertions 


4- 


Application for Duty 


36. 


School 


5. 


Discharges 


37- 


Bechtol 


6. 


Authority to hire auto, type- 


38. 


Organization 




writers, etc. 


39- 


Protection of troops 


7- 


Supplies and Requisitions 


40. 


Sanitary Inspection 


8. 


Aqueduct Structures 


41. 


Reserve Officers 


9- 


Furlough — Leave 


42. 


Enlistment 


10. 


Forms (Requisitions, etc.) 


43. 


Relief from Duty 


II. 


Telephone (Location of, etc. 


) 44- 


Shooting 


12. 


Reports 


45- 


Equipment 


13- 


Recruitiiig 


46. 


Squadron A 


14. 


Commissions (Civilians) 


47. 


Police Dept. 


15. 


Roster 


48. 


Appointment 


16. 


Nomination 


49. 


Aeroplanes 


17- 


Inoculation 


50. 


Resignation 


18. 


Special Orders 


SI- 


Expenses 


19. 


Maps 


52. 


Inspection 


20. 


Sentinels 


53- 


Ammunition 


21. 


Identification Cards 


54- 


Fireless Cookers 


22. 


Court Cases 


55- 


Subsistence 


23. 


Pay-rolls 


56. 


Regimental Papers 


24. 


Delivery Trucks 


57. 


Anonymous Letters 


25- 


Quarters 


58. 


Accidents 


26. 


Auto Service 


59- 


Dental 


27. 


Vouchers 


60. 


Voting 


28. 


Official Letters 


61. 


B. W. S. Police 


29. 


Reckless Driving 


62. 


Complaint 


30. 


Camera 


63- 


Recreation 


31- 


Medical Attention 


64. 


Draft 



240 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

The greater portion of August, 191 7, was devoted to the or- 
ganization of the office itself, in addition to the daily routine and 
the procuration, compilation and checking of various information 
required by regimental and superior authority at the time con- 
cerning the work. Of this, the most important was a lengthy 
report made to the Adjutant-General's office on the location of 
posts and disposition of troops which appears elsewhere. A tack 
map showing all day and night posts of the regiment was kept by 
the Adjutant's office. 

During August and early September the office was conducted 
without flooring in the tent, and the dust worked up by the con- 
stant churn of feet created anything but a healthy atmosphere. 
Just before the middle of the month, however, the office was 
floored, and this added greatly to the comfort of every one. It 
made unnecessary the constant propping of desks and typewriters 
on their down-hill extremities and made the place more livable. 
As yet there were no lights except the barn lanterns, and with 
the constant night work that often ran until tw^o and three o'clock 
in the morning, this was trying on the eyes. 

Private Thomas O'Connor of the Service Company attached 
to the State Arsenal, became a member of the office force just after 
the 1st of September, and Private Edward J. O'Brien was added 
as a stenographer just after that time. Early in September, 
Corp. Thomas W. Therkildsen was brought to Regimental Head- 
quarters and assigned to duty as stenographer in the office with 
the rank of battalion sergeant-major. 

On the loth, Sergt. -Major Speares was relieved from further 
duty upon the return of his troop to home station. In the month 
that he had been a part of the Adjutant's office he had stabilized 
the work, brought it to a high degree of efficiency, and had proven 
himself a "getter" of anything needed for the work of the office. 
His prowess as a rustler became generally knowji, and he never 
failed on any of the tests that resulted from it. Where he found 
table linen and whisk-brooms on five-minute notice has always 
remained a matter of mystery. 

But this is not paper-work; it is a diversion of pleasant memories 
which must be pardoned for its injection at this point. The fact 
is that the Rustler Supreme Magnus of the First Provisional Regi- 
ment was relieved from duty on the loth of September and went 
his way with a record of efficiency and helpfulness behind him 
which stood as a model for the Adjutant's office during the re- 
mainder of the regiment's service in the field. 

The importance of a paper-work school or at least a lecture on 
the subject for newly mobilized regiments before actually taking 



PAPER-WORK OF THE REGIMENT 241 

the field, never had a better demonstration than in the condition 
which was found to exist about the middle of September when the 
press of organization work permitted the calling in of all extracts 
from the morning reports then in arrears. It was found that some 
of the organizations had kept no copies of their attendance 
records, or that they had been lost (there being no morning-report 
books available in all instances), and the records of attendance 
from Aug. loth until Sept. ist were in many cases never fully 
straightened out in so far as the Forms 43 were concerned. Or- 
ganizations that were behind in their reports were shortly after- 
ward relieved from duty on the line, leaving the records incomplete. 

This taught a lesson that was never disregarded thereafter. 
From the ist of September, 1917, until the last days of the regi- 
ment in the field, the reports of the regiment on attendance were 
invariably and almost painfully accurate. Line and staff learned 
from the bitter experience of those first twenty days. The mat- 
ter might have been charged to the profit and loss of mobilization 
period, but there was really no excuse for it. The remedy would 
have been preliminary instruction, but there was no time for 
that during the actual period of mobilization. 

Sergt. -Major Therkildsen took the place of Sergt.-Major 
Speares, and at the time of Corp. Julian Jackson's release from 
field duty because of his health, he was replaced by Abraham W. 
Glick, who entered the field with the detachment of Company C, 
3rd Infantry, under Lieut. Harvey N. Smith. Glick remained 
with the regiment until the summer of 191 8 and was one of the 
best men the office ever had. 

Three wooden files had been added to the office equipment, 
together with a Corona typewriter that was especially valuable 
in the preparation of reports while on the road. This little type- 
writer never needed a repair man to keep it in working order 
despite the large amount of slamming around which it neces- 
sarily received during the hundreds of miles that it traveled in 
the Adjutant's automobile. The office furniture was added to 
from time to time through the carpentry efforts of Corp. Edward 
Waddin, the telephone operator, and eventually each stenographer 
and clerk had a little home-made table-desk with a drawer. 

Considerable representation was made to the Adjutant-Gen- 
eral's office on the subject of office equipment, but it was not 
until Oct. yth, when Major James Blair, representing the A. G., 
visited the headquarters at Croton Lake and saw the need of 
equipment that anything was done. On that date Major Blair 
put official approval on the purchase of necessary office equipment 
and supplies, including 8 steel filing cabinets, 11 desks, chairs, 



242 



H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 



letter baskets, and two mimeograph machines. These were de- 
Hvered during November and made a great difference in the work. 
Special Orders 245, A. G. O., carried the authority for necessary 
purchase and the rental of typewriters. 

It was during October that the correspondence of the regiment 
began to mount in volume out of all proportion to that of the 
previous months. It was also during this month that the check- 
roll call of the regiment, referred to in the chronological history of 
the organization, was instituted by Colonel Rose. 

Since this became more or less of a fixed, though irregular, regi- 
mental custom for a time, it became a part of the regimental 
paper- work; something absolutely new to regimental paper- work 
precedents. The idea of it was to account for the exact location 
of every officer and enlisted man in the regiment at a given time, 
and the first two check-roll calls were sprung without any previous 
warning whatsoever. At about two o'clock in the afternoon of 
Oct. 1 8th, all company commanders were notified that at 3.15 
they would be required to tell by telephone exactly where all 
officers and men of their command were at that time, and what 
they were doing. 

The 1st Battalion took it literally, and such answers as, "wash- 
ing his face," "looking at a picture-book," "playing cards," 
"watching a card game," and many other ones, came through 
on the first call, which kept the wires busy until just before six 
o'clock. A sample page of the results of the first check-roll call 
is given herewith. It is of the 9th C. A. C. command on Sector 
S-4, Capt. John M. Thompson commanding: 



Name 


Rank 


Where 


What Doing 


Capt. Thompson 


Captain 


At hdqrs. * 


Supervision 


Lieut. Welsh 


Lieut. 


On leave to N. Y. 


On leave 


Sergt. Bolermolist 


Sergeant 


Office 


'Phoning report 


" Marsh 


(( 


In camp 


Sleeping 


" Clinton 


<( 


On leave 


New York City 


*' Bolladido 


" 


On line 


Inspecting guard 


Sup. Sergt. Murray 


Sup. Sergt. 


Poughkeepsie 


After supplies 


Corp. Smith 


Corporal 


On guard. Lower-en 
inspection of Posts 


i 






8 to 12 


On guard duty 


" Tully 


<< 


On guard, lower-end 
inspection, Posts 6 








to I 


On guard duty 


" Goldburg 


(< 


At camp 


Drilling 



" SulUvan 
" Rubino 
Cook Dolson 
" EisiUy 



Cook 



Mess Shack 



Getting Supper ready 



PAPER-WORK OF THE REGIMENT 



243 



Name 


Rank 




Where 


What Doing 




Pvt. Clack 


Private 


Mess Shack 


K. P. 




" Ryan 


" 


(I a 


" 




Mech. Noon 




Mechanic 


Making floor in 
tains' tents 


Cap 


Mus. Corrie 


Musician 


Headquarters 


Drilling 




Pvt. GafFney 


Pri^ 


^ate 


Hdqrs. Post i 


On guard 




" Frankel 






' 




' 2 








" Ford 






' 




' 3 








" Hold 






' 




' 4 








" Klenert 






* 




' 5 








" White 






( 




' 6 








" GafFney, E. 






' 




' 7 








" Kennedy 






( 




' 8 








" Reiner 






* 




' 9 








" Meltzer 






* 




* 10 








" Cook 






< 




' II 








" Whalen 






' 




' 12 








" Ryner 






( 


* ist Battn. 








" Carroll 






i 


C ii (( 






" Hlavac Sponza 






Office of company 


Clerical work 




" Healy 






New York City 


Absent with leave 




" Hubbert 






(( (( <( 


il it n 




" Harwidt 


" 


a " " 


" " " 




Sergt. Clinton 


Sergeant 


(( (C (( 


(( (< (C 




Pvt. Goldburg 


Private 


Unknown 


(< (< (< 




" Corofolo 


" 


Hdqrs. 


Drilling 




" Nelson 


(( 


" 


« 




" De Ganio 




' 


i 


I 






« 





Boiled down to the information required; that is, the number 
and percentage of the commands on guard duty, in camp, off 
duty, and on special duty, the recapitulation of the two battalions 
by companies and by battalions showed the following results on 
the first check-roll call: 



8.45 P.M. 



Battery B 










Officers . . . 




I 

.. 61 


I 

15 


100 


Men 





24 


Battery D 










Officers . . . 




I 


I 


100 


Men 




.. 65 


15 


23 


Co. F, 1st 


Inf. 








Officers . . . 




I 






Men 





•• 39 


12 


30 



FIRST BATTALION 

Total Guard Per Camp Per Off Per Special Per 
Duty Cent. Duty Cent. Duty Cent. Duty Cent. 



42 



[00 

17 



45 69 



SI 



244 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

FIRST BATTALION— Continued 

8.45 P.M. 

Total Guard Per Camp Per Off Per Special Per 

Duty Cent. Duty Cent. Duty Cent. Duty Cent. 
Battery A 

Officers 3 2 66 .. .. i 33 

Men 56 II 19 2 4 43 77 

Co. B, 69th Inf. 

Officers 2 I 50 . . . . I 50 

Men 51 8 15 10 20 33 65 

Co. Ay 69th Inf. 

Officers 2 2 100 

Men 52 19 36 4 7 29 57 

I2th Inf. 

Officers 3 3 100 

Men 108 22 20 14 13 72 66 

Qth C. A. C. 

Officers 2 I 50 I 50 

Men 100 22 22 7 7 71 71 

Battery C 

Officers 3 2 66 i 33 

Men 100 31 31 6 6 63 63 

Co. G, 1st Inf. 

Officers 

Men 22 .. .. 4 18 18 82 

Headquarters 

Officers 12 .. .. 10 83 2 17 

Men 5 .. .. 5 100 

Recapitulation 

Officers 30 6 20 18 68 5 17 i 33 

Men 659 155 23.5 68 10.5 436 66 

SECOND BATTALION 

Guard Per Camp Per Off Per Special Per 

Duty Cent. Duty Cent. Duty Cent. Duty Cent. 
Co. B (Olive Bridge, N. Y.) 

Officers I 50 . . . . I 50 

Men 16 32 21 42 6 12 i 2 

Co. A (Atwood, N. Y.) 

Officers I 50 I 50 

Men 19 29 40 61 3 8 

Co. H (Stone Ridge, N. Y.) 

Officers 2 100 

Men 16 20 45 62 8 11 



PAPER-WORK OF THE REGIMENT 245 

SECOND BATTALION— Continued 

Guard Per Camp Per Off Per Special Per 
Duty Cent. Duty Cent. Duty Cent. Duty Cent. 

Troop B (New Paltz, N. Y.) 

Officers I 50 I 50 

Men 19 28 38 47 II 16 

Co. I (Gardiner, N. Y.) 

Officers 3 100 

Men 18 18 70 71 10 10 

Troop G (Walden, N. Y.) 

Officers I 33 I 33 I 33 

Men 15 24 36 58 II 17 

Co. F (Vail's Gate, N. Y.) 

Officers . . I 50 I 50 

Men 19 25 47 65 8 lo 2 2 

Headquarters 

(New Paltz, N. Y.) 
Officers 4 80 I 20 

Recapitulation 

Officers I 5 14 70 5 20 I 5 

Men 122 25.5 291 61.25 59 12.4 3 0.6 

Note: Above figures will not equal the total strength of Oct. i8th, as there 
are several classes not included in the tabulation. 



It will be noted that more than 20 per cent, of the regiment 
was shown on actual guard duty at this time. With an average 
of six-hour shifts, this put 80 per cent, of the regiment on guard 
duty every twenty-four hours, allowing but 20 per cent, for special 
duty, of which there was considerable sickness, absence with and 
without leave, and detail work, such as kitchen police, etc. From 
this it will be immediately seen that the guard margin of the 
regiment was small. 

General Orders No. 21, issued with the benefit of the first 
check-roll call's experience, prescribed a form for all future check- 
roll calls, classifying company posts and outposts separately, 
and prescribing definite classification for the manner in which 
the men were to be reported. This resulted in standardized 
check-roll calls from every company on the line on Oct. 24th, of 
which the following report from Co. A, 69th Infantry, later 
Provisional Company B, is a very good sample: 



246 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

Co. A, 69TH Infantry 

Sector S-2, from south end Garrison Tunnel to south Peekskill 

siphon chamber. 

Cortlandville, N. Y. 

Officers 
Headquarters Camp, Cortlandville, N. Y. 

On Line Inspecting: 
Captain J. J. Roche. 
1st Lieut. E. N. Kirkpatrick. 

Men 
Headquarters Camp. 
In Camp on Duty: 
R. O. O'Grady, ist Sergt. 
Philip Campiglia, Mess Sergt. 
Thomas F. Nash, Supply Sergt. 
Frank X. Marr, Sergt. 
Michael A. Keenan, Sergt. 
Frank W. Deacher, Sergt. 
William Bishop, Pvt., Co. Clerk. 
George B. Colby, Cook. 

In Camp Off Duty: 

Private Orendach. Private Larkin, J. B. A. 

Private Schlitt. Private Trainor. 

Private Boland. Private Tholssen. 

Private Dawson. Private Keller. 

Private Burns. Private Moqnan. 

Private Bingham. Private Wynne. 

Private Stokes. Corporal Conerford. 

Total 14 

On Guard: 
Private Burke, J. M., Post 7, Cat Hill Manhole 71, 

Culv. 131. 
Private Larkin, J. J., Posts 8 and 9 Cat Hill, Culv. 132 

and 133. 
Private Barrett, J. H., Post 10, Cat Hill Culv. 134. 
Private Doyle, T., Post 12, North Peekskill Siphon 

Chamber. 



PAPER-WORK OF THE REGIMENT 247 

Private Coogan, Post 13, Manholes 73 and 74 andfBlow- 

ofF Chamber and Manhole 74. 
Private Fitzpatrick, Post 14, Manholes 75 and ^(^. 
Private Scully, Air Valve 78, Manhole 79, Blow-off 

Chamber ^']^ Culv. 135. 
Private Klapthor, Post 15, Manholes 80, 81 and 82 and 

Culvs. 136 and 138. 

Total 8 

Supervising Non-Corns.: 
Corporal King, Jos., Post 11, patrols from north Siphon 
Chamber to Cat Hill Tunnel. 

Total I 

Special Duty: 
Mechanic O'Connor with officers on line. 

Total I 

Ah sent with Leave: 
Hynes, Chas. M., Sanitary Corps, in city. 
Williams, Michael, Private, on pass. 

Total 2 

Absent without Leave: 
Private Thomas J. Manley, New York, it is thought. 

Total I 

In Arrest: 
Private Reiss, in camp, 5 days, disobedience and A. W. 
O. L. Waiting for G. C. M. 

Total I 

Sick: 
Doyle, Daniel, Peekskill Hospital, since Oct. 23rd. 

Total I 

Outpost^ Sprout Brook: 
Supervising N.-C. O. Sergt. John Bowen. 

Total I 

In Camp on Duty: 
Roche, T. Cook. 

Total I 



248 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

In Camp Of Duty: 
Private Lyons. Private McElhern. 

Private Pelierei. Private Hennessy. 

Private Crowley. Private Green. 

Private Looney. Private Young. 

Total 8 

On Guard: 

Private Sullivan, Manhole 67, Open Drain 130, and 

Cable into Tunnel. 
Corporal Wall, Posts 2 and 3 connecting i and 4. 
Private Larkin, Post 4, at N. Sprout Brook Siphon 

Chamber. 
Private Close, Post 5, Manhole 70 to Blow-ofF Chamber 

69, Sprout Brook Division House and Manhole 68. 
Private Djornquist, Post 6, S. Sprout Brook Siphon 

Chamber. 

Total 5 

Total men 52 

Total officers 2 

As will be at once seen, the check-roll call added tremendously 
to the work in the Adjutant's office. On check-roll call nights 
no one thought of sleep until a late hour, and the recapitulations 
furnished a big problem. 

The immediate benefit of it was to keep the line tightened 
and to assure the commanding officer of the regiment that each 
individual unit commander knew the whereabouts of all men of 
his command at all times. A check-roll call was likely to strike 
the line at any time of day or night, and after the issuance of 
General Orders on the subject there was no further warning. 
Totals must of necessity check against the morning report of the 
command involved on the same day or explanation was required. 

It was about this time that there was put into effect at head- 
quarters the information slip system, which proved to be a time- 
eliminator of the nth power in routine matters. Since man- 
power in the Adjutant's office was constantly as serious a problem 
as it was elsewhere in the regiment, the information slip, patterned 
after Moss, was an indorsement-eliminator, a big aid to the office 
daily. Routine matters referred to the supply officer or dis- 
bursing officer for their information, as well as matters passing 
between the post commandant's office and the Adjutant's 



PAPER-WORK OF THE REGIMENT 249 

office, referred from the Lieutenant-Colonel to the Adjutant's 
office for file, or referred from the Adjutant's office to the Judge- 
Advocate or summary court officers for their information, were 
invariably handled with information slips after their establishment 
as a part of the prescribed regimental forms, and an average of 
ten to twenty indorsements were thus saved daily. A typical 
information slip is herewith reproduced: 



INFORMATION SLIP 
HEADQUARTERS 1ST PROV. REGT . 
Ossining, N.Y. 



Attached referred to 
C. 

Supply Officer 
Medical Officer 
DislDursing Officer 
1st Battalion Hdqrs . 
2nd Battalion Hdqrs . 
3rd Battalion Hdqrs. 
Judge Advocate 



Per 
Notation and return 
Necessary action 
Pile 
Remark 

Investigation and report 
Recommendation 
Correction as indicated 
Information and guidance 

Captain, 1st Infantry, N.Y.G. 
Adjutant 

Early in November, Frank C. Dehm of the 71st Infantry 
joined the Adjutant's office as a stenographer. Dehm was one 
of the hardest workers that ever pounded the keys of a typewriter 
at Regimental Headquarters. Once the lure of New York called 
him back to the big city and he was released, but later he came 
back again and filled a big gap in the stenographic force. 



2SO H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

By the last of November, when the headquarters office moved 
into winter quarters in the Httle white building between Kelly's 
Hotel and the Crow Hill road, lights had been installed in the 
camp on the hill and the office furniture had arrived; the mime- 
ograph was turning out as many orders in a minute as formerly 
could be produced in three hours of steady stroking of the gela- 
tine duplicator, and it was a well-established office all the way 
through. With beaver-board lining, double windows and a couple 
of stoves on the lower floor as welljastone on the upper floor, the 
little old building was mighty comfortable — sometimes too much 
so. Corp. Howard Seufert of Company L, loth Infantry, the 
Adjutant's former company, was added to the ranks of the office 
men and O'Brien and O'Connor entered Uncle Sam's Q. M. C. 

About this time there was added to the force in a clerical 
capacity a man who from that time until the regiment left the 
field stood as insurance to the Adjutant's office against clerical 
errors in all matters where figures were concerned. Corp. Francis 
Coughlan of the 14th Infantry was the kind of an accountant 
who did not know what it was to make a mistake, and as soon 
as this became apparent he was permanently attached as account- 
ant and report clerk. Later, as a sergeant, he had complete charge 
of all matters pertaining to morning reports, all percentages of 
strength and sickness, and at the same time checked extensions 
and footings on all bills going through the Adjutant's department. 

Upon Dehm's release there came into military life for the first 
time as a stenographer in the Adjutant's office, Ralph L. Ruebsa- 
men, who later, under a supreme court order, was permitted to 
change his name to Ralph L. Rodney. As a matter of fact, he 
was seldom called by his full name. The irrepressibles in the 
Adjutant's office dubbed him "Rube," and *'Rube" it was, even 
after his name was changed. Continuing, with one slight inter- 
mission, until the ist of October, Sergeant Rodney was for some 
time Regimental Sergeant-Major, subsequent to Lieut. Ther- 
kildsen's promotion. Rodney was, in the parlance of the office, 
"a horse for work." For some time during the spring and summer 
he was given charge of and made responsible for the monthly 
summary court fine reports from sector commanders, and the 
compilation and culling from battalion inspectors' reports for 
transmittal to Brigade Headquarters. He has the distinction 
of being the one man of the office force at whom Cupid aimed his 
bow while he toiled between the clicking type-mills and the town 
of Mt. Kisco over the muddy back roads. He was married shortly 
after leaving the service in the fall of 19 18. 

Mylert Mclntyre of the 12th Infantry was the first stenotype 



I 



PAPER-WORK OF THE REGIMENT 251 

operator to become a part of the office, joining the ranks of the 
toilers while the snow was still on the ground in the early spring 
of 191 8. Mclntyre and his stenotype were a big help, and Mc- 
Intyre's good judgment as a stenographer was of particular as- 
sistance in work where much judgment is always required. He 
could take dictation faster than the average person could give it. 

The brigading of the regiment added considerably to the duties 
of the Adjutant's office, but after the early part of 191 8 night 
work, as a general proposition in the office, was discontinued. 
One non-commissioned officer was on duty at all times, and the 
office force slept in the winter office building. In the summer the 
Adjutant's sleeping-quarters were directly in the rear of the 
summer office, and one non-commissioned officer was required to 
remain on night duty only until the time the Adjutant turned in. 

On April 1st the office moved back to the hill-top and summer 
quarters. 

Early in June the Federal enlistment lure struck the head- 
quarters and line of the First Provisional. Glick departed, soon 
to be followed by Rodney and Blizard, but both the latter, being 
rejected, retiirned to the old work. Ralph S. Happel of Troop B 
had been placed in charge of the filing work, and it was thus 
possible to give to Blizard on his leturn the well-earned position of 
Regimental Sergeant-Major that his experience with the office 
entitled him to. Rodney, upon his return, was carried as ser- 
geant first class. About this time Lieut. Therkildsen, who had 
been attached to the office since the previous fall, was detailed 
to duty on the line, and with the enlistment of Mclntyre in the 
navy, Herbert F. Thornblade, a stenotype-operator, was enlisted 
in one of the line companies and brought to headquarters. 

These were tight times for the Adjutant's office in the matter 
of stenographic help, and Mrs. T. R. Hutton was enlisted as a 
volunteer stenographer to help through some of the tight places. 
With Thornblade added to the force, Rodney returned, and 
Joseph W. Judge, of Company A, ist Infantry, brought into the 
field as a stenographer, things eased off a bit. Then Happle was 
drafted into Federal service, and Willard G. Ruff, of Troop B, was 
for a time filing-clerk. J. J. Sheahan of the 71st Infantry was 
temporarily attached to the headquarters office as a stenographer. 

The number of reports had greatly increased since the entry 
of the regiment into the field. The contents of General Orders 
44, issued in June, were somewhat of a shock even to those handling 
the reports. The order is reproduced herewith and gives an indi- 
cation of the volume of routine reports handled by the Adjutant's 
office, exclusive of the routine correspondence and the special 
17 



252 



H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 



reports required. This does not consider the reports furnished 
the City of New York upon direction of the Brigade Commander, 
including daily summary and monthly consolidation of Form 

No. 44. 

Headquarters 

First Provisional Regiment 

New York Guard 

Croton Lake, N. Y. 
June 18, 1918. 
General Orders 

No. 44 

1. For the information and guidance of Officers of the First Provisional Regi- 
ment, this Headquarters has prepared a tickler, which shows the reports required 
by the various Headquarters, when required, their nature, form, to whom they 
are to be sent, and the authority for the same. 

2. The following reports and returns are required as noted below. 

3. Wherever the terms G. O. and S. O. are used they refer to General Orders 
and Special Orders of this Regiment unless otherwise specified. 

DAILY 



By Nature Form To Auth 

Unit C. O. Morning report Telephone Bn C. O. R. 931 



Unit C. O. Morning report 43 Mail 
Unit C. O. Sick report Teleph. 



Bn. C. O. Consolidated Teleph. 

report 
Bn, Insp. Inspection Letter 

report 
Bn. M. O. Sick report Teleph. 



Remarks 
Time set by Bn. 
CO. 
Reg. Hq. R. 931 G. O. Extract from 

41-1917 morning report 

Bn. M. O. G. 0. 29 c. s. Note hospital 

days 
Reg. Hq. G. O. 17 c. s. Before 9 a.m. 



Bn. C. 0. Reg. Circ. 27 As directed 
and 33 c. s. 

Bn. C. O. R. 944 Written report 

of inspection 
made 



WEEKLY 



By Nature 


Form 


To 


Auth. Remarks 


Unit C. 0. Car report 


Letter 


Reg. Hq. 


G. 0. 14-1917 Showing mile- 
age of gas, oil, 
tires and repairs 


Bn. C. 0. Inspector's 


Letter 


Reg. Hq. 


Reg. Circ. 27 To be at Reg. 


report 






and 33 c. s. Hq. by Sunday, 
A.M. with com- 
ment 



PAPER-WORK OF THE REGIMENT 

SEMI-MONTHLY 



253 



By Nature 


Form 


To 


Auth. 


Remarks 


Surgeon- Treatment 


Letter 


Chief 


CO. 


Detailed report 


dentist report 




M.O. 




of treatment 


ChiefM.O. Report of Sur- 


Letter 


Reg. Hq. 


CO. 


With comment 


geon-dentist 










Chief M.O. Hospital and 


67 


Brig. Hq. 


G. 0. 2 


On the ist day 


prescription 






Prov. Brigade 


, of the month 


book 










ChiefM.O. Hospital and 


(>7 


Brig. Hq. 


G. 0. 2 


On the 15th day 


prescription 






Prov. Brigade 


of the month. 


book 












MONTHLY 






< 


On the 1st day of each 


month 




By Nature 


Form 


To 


Auth. 


Remarks 


Unit C. 0. Guard cards 


Prescribed 


Reg. Hq. 


G.0. 18-1917 
G. 0. 6 c. s. 




Unit C. 0. Roster 


R. 482 


Reg. Hq. 


CO. 


Showing losses 
and gains 


Unit C. 0. Subsistence 


As fur- 


Reg. S. 0. 


G. 0. 8 c. s. 


Showing all bills 


report 


nished 




Reg. Cir. 5 


for month 


Unit C. 0. Ration return 


Q. M. Form Reg. Hq. 


R. 1115 






No. 223 




G. 0. 15-1917 


Unit C. 0. Forage ration 


91 


Reg. Hq. 


R.673 


Wherever public 


return 






G. 0. 42-1917 


animals are 
maintained 


Unit C. 0. Vouchers and 




S.O. 


Circ. I, 


For previous 


bills 






Prov. Brig. 


month 


Unit C. 0. Transportation 31 


S.O. 






report 










Unit C. 0. Requisition 


Letter 


S.O. 


G. 0. 39 c. s. 




for electric bulbs 








Unit C. 0. Delivery slips 




S.O. 


G. 0. 37 c. s. 




for ice 










Unit C. 0. Requisition 


Letter 


Reg. Hq. 


Reg. Circ. 


For month 


for forms 






No. 8 


next following 


Bn. M. 0. Sanitary report Prescribed 


CO. 


G. 0. 29 c. s. 


Venereal 


Unit C. 0. Hospital 


Letter 


Bn. M. 


G. 0. 24 c. s. 


Showing hos- 


report 








pital men days 


Unit C. 0. Report of worn 


Letter 


S.O. 


G. 0. 42-1917 


or expended 










parts of autos, 










1 wagons, sleighs, 








harness, or other 








method of 










transportation 











254 



H-A-L-TT !— WHA-ZAA ? 

On the 5th day of each month 



By Nature 

Unit C. O. Telephone 
report 



Form To Auth. Remarks 

Prescribed Bn. C. 0. G. O. 9 c, s. Accompanied 

by checks pay- 
able to S. O. 



On the loth day of each month 



By Nature 

Bn. C. O. Telephone 
report 



Form To Auth. 

Prescribed Reg. Hq. G. 9 c. s. 



Remarks 
Accompanied 
by checks pay- 
able to S. O. 



On the 25th day of each month 



By Naiure 


Form 


To Auth. 


Remarks 


it C. 0. Summary 


Letter 


Reg. Hq. G. 0. 13 c. s. 


From the 25th 


court fines 




Cir. 23 c. s. 


of previous 






S. 0. 10 


month 






Prov. Brig. 





On the 26th day of each month 



By Nature 


Form 


To 


Auth. 


Remarks 


it C. 0. Pay-rolls 


33 


Reg. Hq. 


Cir II and 

33 c. s. 


Accompanied 
by yellow slips 



when necessary 



WHEN OCCASION ARISES 



By 


Nature 


Form 


To 


Auth. 


Remarks 


Unit C. 0. 


Request for 
release and 
replacements 


Letter 


Reg. Hq. 


G.O. 


43 CvS 


Giving name, 
grade, home unit 
and reason for 
release 


Unit C. 0. 


Unusual 
happening 


Letter in 
quadrupli- 
cate 


Bn. C. 0. 


CO. 






Bn. C. 0. 


Unusual 
happening 


Letter in 
triplicate 


Reg. Hq. 


CO. 






Unit C. 0. 


Copy of 

commitment 

papers 


Prescribed 


Reg. Hq. 


G.O. 


4c. s. 


Prisoner should 
be accompanied 
by IPA, DL and 
commitment 
papers when 
forwarded to 
prison camp 



PAPER-WORK OF THE REGIMENT 

WHEN OCCASION ARISES— Continued 



255 



By Nature 


Form 


To 


Auth. 


Remarks 


Unit C. 0. Transportation 130 


A.-G. 


S.O. 27 


Signed with 


requests 






Prov. Brig. 


letter of trans- 
mittal 


Unit C, 0. Report of 


102 


S.O. 


R. 1060 




property lost, 










stolen or 










destroyed 










Unit C. 0. Report of 


Letter 


Reg. Hq. 


CO. 


Showing name, 


transfer 








grade, unit and 
unit to or 
from which 
transferred 


Unit C. 0. Destruction 


Letter 


Reg. Hq. 


G. 0. 28 c. s. 




of packages 










Unit C. 0. Transfer 


25 and 25 


-A Receiving 


G. 0. 43-191 


7 Triplicate 



Unit C. O. Hire of civilian Letter 
physician 



By 



Official: 

t. r. hutton, 

Capt. ist Inf. N. Y. G., Adjutant 



Officer 

Reg. Hq. G. 0. 43-1917 TripHcate 

Order of Major William L. Burnett 
Acting Lieut.-Col. Commanding 

T. R. HuTTON, 

Captain, ist Infantry, N. Y. G., 
Adjutant. 



These reports were checked as received on daily, weekly and 
monthly charts, arranged by companies, and at any time showing 
exactly what units were in arrears and to what extent. 

Early in the summer a demand by Brigade Headquarters for 
release and replacement schedules of men to be relieved from the 
field made necessary the organization of this work by itself under 
charge of the sergeant-major. Requests for release approved by 
immediate and intermediate commanders came through to the 
Adjutant's office and were there compiled into the form shown 
herewith : 

FORM OF RELEASE AND REPLACEMENT SCHEDULE 

Schedule of Release and Replacements 
FOR THE First Prov. Regt., N, Y. G. 

Regiment 
from which 
Prov. Original Cause of Replacement 

Co. Status Release Is Desired 

B Co. F, 23rd Infantry Dependency 69th 

E Co. B, 69th Infantry Fed. service 69th 

F 4th Co., 8th C. A. C. Fed. enlistment 47th 



Name 
Mix, William A., Pvt. 
Mann, John L., Pvt. 
Ford, Arthur W., Pvt, 



256 



H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 



FORM OF RELEASE— Conrmtt^^ 



Name 
McCutcheon, Arthur, Pvt. 
Luyster, William, Pvt. 
Haner, George, Pvt. 
Smith, Terence J,, Pvt. 
Taft, George W., Pvt. 
Vogt, William, Pvt. 
Burroughs, W. H., Pvt. 
Horan, Thomas, Pvt. 
Gildersleeve, Herbert, Pvt. 



Prov. 
Co. 



Original 
Status 



Cause of 
Release 



Regiment 
from which 
Replacement 
Is Desired 



M. G. Co. H, 23rd Infantry Phys. disability 23rd 

M. G. Co. M, 23rd Infantry Phys. disability 23rd 

9th Co. 13th C. A. C. Dependency 23rd 

Co. G, 23rd Infantry Dependency 23rd 

M. G. 8thCo.,i3thC.A.C. Dependency 23rd 

M. G. Co. B, 23rd Infantry Dependency 23rd 

13th C. A. C. Dependency 23rd 

13th C. A. C. Dependency 23rd 



M. G 
M. G 



M. G 

M. G 



Hdqrs. Co. F, ist Infantry Fed. service 



and recapitulated as follows: 

RECAPITULATION 

From: Commanding Officer, First Provisional Regi- 

ment, N. Y. G. 

To: Commanding General, Provisional Brigade, Al- 

bany, N. Y. 

Subject: Release and Replacements. 

1. Requesting that orders be issued relieving from fur- 
ther duty with the First Prov. Regt. and returning to their 
original status the men listed in the attached schedule. 

2. Requesting that orders be issued for the replacement 
of these men as indicated in Column 5 and totaling as fol- 
lows: 

Organization Number Destination 

69th Infantry i Co. B, Vancortlandville, N. Y. 

69th Infantry i Co. F, Olive Bridge, N. Y. 

47th Infantry i Co. F, New Paltz, N. Y. 

23rd Infantry 8 M. G. Co., Newburgh, N. Y. 



Total . . . 69th Infantry 2 
47th Infantry i 
23 rd Infantry 8 



jwj 



II 



John B. Rose, 

Colonel. 



This form was approved by the Commanding General and there- 
after became the standard for release and replacement schedules. 



PAPER-WORK OF THE REGIMENT 257 

A separate card-index system, checked against requests and actual 
releases under orders from the Adjutant-General, was maintained 
as a tickler and final cross check on the releases themselves. 
By this card index the omission of three schedules totalling o\er 
seventy-five men was located shortly after the omission occurred, 
and a great deal of confusion avoided in consequence. At periods 
when superior headquarters lost track of the exact status of the 
releases requested, the releases issued and the replacements that 
had actually been made, reference to the schedules and a chart 
kept by the sergeant-major in connection with the daily recapitu- 
lation enabled the department to give immediate information. 

While on the subject of releases and cross indices something 
should be said concerning the cross index established and main- 
tained on the general and special orders of the regiment — an index 
that required perhaps an hour a day to keep up, and which often 
saved hours of labor in running through back orders for some 
particular information that was wanted by some one of the de- 
partments or by a unit commander. A sample of the Order Index 
is given herewith: 



Jo 



specimen of Index Card 



Joslyn, Cook Raymond. Batt. A, 3rd F. A. Release 
S. 0. 107. 

Jorgensen, Pvt. Viggo. Co. B, 47th Inf. (F) Re- 
lease S. O. No. 118— Par. 11. 

Jones, Corp. Wm. R. Troop G, Sq. D. (L) Release 
S. O. No. 123— Par VI. 

Johnson, Pvt. Gilbert. Transferred to Supply Co. as 
Acting Sgt. Chauf. S. O. No. 202— Par. V. 

In addition to this a cross-index system was kept for the current 
correspondence at one time. The dual-number system was so 
simple, however, that this was not vital to the immediate location 
of correspondence and was used more as a check on the filing-clerk 
than for any other reason. 

Summary Court cases were filed alphabetically, while descrip- 
tive lists were filed according to companies and then alphabetically. 
Orders, filed chronologically in the correspondence file under their 
respective subdivision and subject, were also kept in bound 
form, available for reference, and extra sets were filed for future 
reference. 

To Sergeant Coughlan fell the duty of a daily summary of the 



258 



H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 



condition of the regiment, made in quadruplicate, one copy going 
to the Commanding Officer, one to the Lieutenant-Colonel, one to 
the Adjutant and one to the sergeant-major for filing. A sample 
report is printed herewith: 



Present 

Officers E. Men 

59 969 



Morning Report, December 24TH, 1918. 

Absent Present and Absent 

Officers E. Men Officers E. Men 
2 82 61 1,051 

Prisoners 10 

A. W. O. L 2 

12 
Sick percentage, 6.50 



1st Battalion 

Co. A o 

Co. B o 

Co. C o 

Co. D o 



A. W, 0. L, 

2nd Battalion 

Co. E o 

Co. F 5 

Co. G o 

Co. H I 

M. G. Co... 2 



8 



Total, 



Srd Battalion 

Co. I o 

Co. K o 

Co. L 16 

Co. M o 

16 



24 



This was placed on the officers' desks before 10.30 o'clock in 
the morning and gave a complete idea of the condition of the regi- 
ment. At a glance the commanding officer was able to tell what 
the problem of the day was, as far as man power was concerned, 
before the Regimental 44 came to him for signature. 

Sick charts in percentages and strength charts in units were 
maintained throughout the regiment's service, both appearing 
in the pages of this work. During the influenza epidemic field- 
hospital charts were maintained at the Adjutant's office, showing 
the rise and fall of influenza cases and general cases and the deaths 
as they occurred at each hospital. It was during the epidemic 
that Capt. John Towner was for some time attached to the 
Adjutant's office for the special sick reports required. 

One of the biggest problems with which the Adjutant's office 



PAPER-WORK OF THE REGIMENT 259 

had to contend was the maintenance of descriptive Hsts in proper 
fashion. This was a part of the great detail made necessary by 
the coming and going of the eight thousand men who at one time 
and another were a part of the First Provisional Regiment. It 
was impossible to keep all descriptive lists to date. In many 
cases men entered the field without any descriptive lists whatso- 
ever, and by the time their descriptive lists were forwarded they 
had been returned to home station. The same thing was true of 
men who came out in units. There were numerous instances of 
men inspected and selected for service, who with their descriptive 
lists in the pockets of the inspecting officer and their name on 
the roster forwarded to the Adjutant's office, developed in two 
or three hours cases of acute dependency that resulted in their 
not entering the field at all. 

The departure of the National Guard troops, after months of 
federalization, and the consequent use of United States forms had 
left the State short of the proper amount of State forms necessary 
for the transaction of the business of a regiment in the field 
service. This was accentuated by the very conditions under 
which the regiment operated, as, for instance, in the matter of 
Forms 43, where duplicates from each company for a month 
meant the use of about 1,000 Forms, 43 every 30 days. In addi- 
tion to their reports to the First Provisional Regiment units in 
the field were also rendering weekly returns to home station, 
and they were seldom or never provided with forms from home 
station for this purpose. The result was a tremendous consump- 
tion of forms. Forms 44 were used in as proportionately large 
quantity, and had not the field headquarters of the ist Infantry 
also been located with the headquarters of the First Provisional 
there would have been tight times in the matter of forms. On a 
number of occasions the office of the Adjutant-General must 
have been convinced that the First Provisional was using Forms 43 
to paper its barracks with, but actually few were wasted; they 
were too precious. 

Not the least of the difficulties under which the Adjutant's 
office operated from the beginning was the mail schedule in and 
out of Croton Lake Station, the nearest post-office. Letters mailed 
to the Adjutant-General or the Brigade Headquarters at Croton 
Lake Station arrived in some cases four days later at Albany, and 
in the meantime superior authority often sent through a reminder 
letter on a subject that had already been answered. This resulted 
in cross-communications and helped to involve things a little even 
under the best of circumstances. When the regimental headquar- 
ters moved to Ossining, this condition was eliminated. 



26o H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

Line mail time was never improved, however. A query to the 
commanding officer of Company E at Ohve Bridge, passing through 
the Adjutant's office from Albany, required at least five days, and 
in winter seven or eight, for the round trip to and from the head 
of the line. This was without any delay at the company head- 
quarters. Another three days might be consumed in getting it 
from Croton Lake to Albany, with the result that from eleven to 
fourteen days would be required for a question by Brigade Head- 
quarters to be answered and back to the source of inquiry. 

The question of mail time is introduced as a warning to troops 
taking the field. At the best, delay of army correspondence is 
certain, and that no misunderstanding may arise at superior 
headquarters, it would be well for company and regimental com- 
manders, immediately upon ascertaining the length of time re- 
quired for the passage of mail through the channel, to convey 
that information to superior headquarters. This will eliminate 
all questions as to the promptness with which correspondence 
is handled at subordinate headquarters and starts things right 
in so far as the transmittal of paper-work is concerned. 

The influenza epidemic in October added a large volume of 
paper-work and special reports, and it was in this crisis that the 
Adjutant called on the National League for Women's '.Service 
that had done so much for the regiment in the way of auxiliary 
motor transportation. In response the League sent to head- 
quarters Mrs. Florence Cox, Mrs. Lindsay Reid and Mrs. Richard 
Keogh, all of New York, who served as volunteers throughout 
the greater part of October. At that time the field hospital had 
been opened at Ossining and the stenographers were quartered 
with the nurses there, being brought to Croton Lake each morn- 
ing and returning at night. The work which these women did 
in that crisis cannot be overestimated, as it bridged the work of 
the Adjutant's department over what seemed then a very uncer- 
tain time. Judge, and George W. Sackett, who had entered the 
field with him, were relieved just after the final departure of Rod- 
ney, as was George A. Seiler, who was temporarily stenographer. 

On the night of the 25th of October the Adjutant's office moved 
to the new headquarters in Ossining, and on the morning of the 
26th business opened as usual and was carried on as though no 
movement had occurred. The new office on the ground floor of 
the west wing and occupying a portion of the old mess hall of 
the Holbrook Military Academy, was a commodious and almost 
luxurious affair when compared with the first quarters of the same 
department. With desks, electric lights, an ample supply of 
typewriters, whirring mimeographs, glass-partitioned private 



PAPER-WORK OF THE REGIMENT 261 

offices, steam-heated and a fireplace, it was a wonderful contrast 
to the dirt-floored, windy, ill-lighted and ill-fitted office of the 
first days of the regiment's history. 

The term of the volunteer stenographers expired and the office 
was left with only Sergeant Thornblade shortly after the movement 
of the headquarters. Authority was secured for a civilian stenog- 
rapher and Mrs. Hutton was again brought back into service, 
first as a volunteer, but later under pay. From that time until 
the conclusion of the service she and Sergeant Thornblade handled 
the stenography work of the office, which was considerably in- 
creased in the later days of the regiment's history. 

The final complete organization of the office on December 
15th, when Captain Hutton retired as Adjutant, to be assigned to 
special duty in the preparation of the regiment's history, was as 
follows : 

Adjutant, Avery E. Lord, Captain, ist Infantry. 

Sergeant-Major, Charles J. Blizard, ist Infantry. 

Sergeant, ist Class (records and reports), Francis Coughlan, 
14th Infantry. 

Sergeant, ist Class (stenographer), Herbert F. Thornblade, 14th 
Infantry. 

Sergeant (files and filing), Ralph Waterman, ist Infantry. 

Sergeant (order clerk, and copyist), Richard Ryal, 4th Infantry. 

Corporal (reports), Forest Swingle, 4th Infantry. 

Civilian Employee (stenographer), Ida Oram Hutton, Utica. 

So the Adjutant's office stood at the conclusion of its work, 
well-housed, completely equipped, comfortable, well-organized and 
stable after its long struggle with the unprecedented in army 
paper-work. From the lines of this chapter two lessons may be 
drawn for those who may in later years find themselves face to 
face with similar or the same propositions that confronted the 
administrative office of the First Provisional Regiment: Method 
and Spirit. 

Analysis of the methods employed in the paper-work of the 
regiment shows that only adaptability, interpretation of the regu- 
lations, and the precedents of army paper-work along the broadest 
lines, and the formation of an organization intended to meet the 
peculiar problems and conditions of the regiment's affairs, could 
have met the situations as they came. Perhaps the best illustra- 
tion of this is in the filing system, which, because of its flexibility 
and catholicity, was later adopted for the ist Infantry. Following 
an inspection by Lieut. -Col. Howard Smith, the Inspector-General 
of the State, it was given official sanction in the final sentence of 
Paragraph No. 34, G. O. 19, A.-G. O. 193. 



262 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

The results obtained in the Adjutant's office in spite of shortage 
of equipment and knowledge in the early days and of man power 
at all times, are the best evidence of the spirit that permeated 
the men who at one time and another made up the office family. 
The department was particularly fortunate in the type of men 
that comprised it. Blessed with an ever-present sense of humor, 
an ability to see beyond the irritating details of the day the bright 
possibilities of the morrow, and always conscious of the fact that 
they were accomplishing the unprecedented, the clerks and stenog- 
raphers formed at practically all periods of the regiment's history 
a flying wedge of highly developed team-work. And for the 
greater part, they were Personalities, each with a particular in- 
dividuality that singled him out. The personal side of the work 
was the thing that made it go so well. It is the personal recollec- 
tion that will remain the longest with one who, as these lines are 
written, gives without hesitation the full credit for the perform- 
ances of the department to the men who served well and faith- 
fully in the ranks and made it possible. 

"Cog," of the eternal smile, the dragging foot and the waving 
hand; Glick, beaming through his glasses or growling about the 
mess; O'Brien, flushed, worried and profane; Speares, blinking 
in the lantern-light of the early days as he pounded at the Corona 
in the late watches of the night; Rube, soberly concerned at some 
untoward event or gently remonstrative on the subject of the 
Journal; Dehm, with his everlasting pipe and his black eyes 
snapping above it; Tom O'Connor of the cadenced manual and 
the swinging broom; little Thornblade and big Mclntyre, with 
their yards and yards of *' Chinese-laundry ticket" notes; and 
Blizard, he of the flaming hair and pink cheeks, hunched above 
exasperating duplicator, and stroking, stroking, stroking, bent 
over his files, peering short-sightedly at his schedules or poking 
at the stove in an effort to smoke out some undesirable visitor — 
all these are mental snapshots of the men who helped to make a 
success of paper-work without precedent. They are the men who 
held intact the records of the regiment and in its day of Arma- 
geddon enabled it to stand and do battle armed with documentary 
evidence that made the position of those who opposed it untenable. 



DOGS OF THE REGIMENT 

"Dogs of the Line, make answer — 
What of the job and you? 
What of the day and the night patrol? 
What of the skunk and the woodchuck hole? 
What of the bacon strip you stole? 
What of the work ye do? 

"And an Airedale spoke from the 'Shokan, 
Where the Tongore Siphons stand: 
* This is our job — go to and fro 
On the hard-packed earth or the beaten snow; 
Down to the culvert mouth and in. 
Through and through. And then we begin 
Up at the top of the Line again; 
Up and down in the snow and rain.' . . ." 

— " The Dog Patrol." 

NIGHT in the 'Shokan. 
Not a night of twinkling stars and creamy moon, but a 
shrouded, thick, sullen autumn night, swept by bare gusts from 
the giant black mountain shapes bending above the bays of the 
great lake; a thick, black night on the scarcely distinguishable 
line of cut and cover and the swooping white streak of the siphon 
path. 

With every pufF of wind naked tree branches grind and creak in 
the woods and there is a sudden rustle and murmur in the thickets 
and the long grasses of the cleared places. Then silence, until 
from afar to the north, at the lake's southern margin, a whisper 
that rises to an approaching roar tells of another blast. Again 
utter silence in the broad valley save for the distant moan of 
forests on the mountain shoulders. 

Silence, profound and deep as the blackness of the night itself, 
enveloped in all the mystery of the unknown dark, oppressive, 
almost intangible in its presence; silence broken now by crunch of 
feet on the Atwood road that runs within stone's-throw of the 
cut and cover. It is a belated farmer trudging along the rough 
way. 

Crashing into the dark there breaks from the cut and cover a 
hoarse challenge, such as was never uttered from human throat, 
a deep, thick, roaring, short-chopped bay; a threatening, cadenced 
" Bar-r-r-f !— Bar-r-f !— Barf !" 



264 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

And the traveler, with an involuntary shudder, tightens his 
hold on the bundle that he carries and quickens his steps with the 
subdued exclamation, "The dogs!" 



That hoarse, warning challenge has traveled far across the 
silent valley. The kitchen door of a little farm-house is opened 
for a moment, and a broad ray of yellow light streams out into 
the night, silhouetting the figure of a woman who halts in the 
act of shutting out the darkness as the deep-throated note comes 
through the night spaces. For a moment she listens and then 
closes the door with something of fear and horror in her eyes. 

**The dogs!" she says to her husband. 



Past midnight, and again silence; the brooding silence of the 
early morning hours, when the night wind has died and all the 
forces of nature, exhausted, in the ebb-hours of the twenty-four 
take their rest; silence on the long line of the cut and cover, where 
only a silent, looming shadow by the 'phone-box over the culvert 
tells of life guarding life. 

Silence, split now, and shattered with nerve-tearing sudden- 
ness by a wild scream at the gates, where a farm road crosses the 
line of the Aqueduct; the scream of a man in mortal fear, followed 
by a snarling, charging roar. 

A strong voice booming through the night, "Hold him, Rags!"; 
the sound of running feet, the flash of an electric torch, and a 
whimpering, worrying sound by the road crossing. 

From the darkness into the flare of white light that gleams on 
the concrete posts of the B. W. S. fence a strong hand reaches 
into a writhing jumble of black shadows between the gates and 
drags backward a huge, slavering, broad-chested, bewhiskered 
demon of the night whose white teeth, uncovered by snarling 
lips, clash as the steel body strains forward. 

"Get that man up," says the dog sergeant, and a shaken, 
white-faced Pole, with one coat-sleeve in tatters, staggers to his 
feet. 

"Hang on to Help and get Betsy when she comes down. She's 
back there somewhere," continues the man in uniform, who holds 
the big, plunging Airedale, to one of the sentries. "Now you look 
here," he continues to the shaken traveler. "You ought to know 
by this time that you want to keep off" of here at night. You can't 
take no chances with these dogs. They don't know you from the 
Kaiser. If you want to get across, you holler for the sentry. 



DOGS OF THE REGIMENT 265 

I know, I know," as the Pole starts to explain. *'I know who you 
are, but your boss has told you and the men on post have told you 
not to try to cross here at night. Sometime you'll get what the 
Austrian did down near Atwood. You keep away from here at 
night." 



The light dies out with a snap, a shrill whistle rings along the 
cut and cover and on the hard, beaten pathway the pad! pad! pad! 
of the four-legged guardians of the Aqueduct dies away into 
silence. The Airedale patrol is working southward to the kennels 
at Atwood. 



Of the Airedale patrol of the First Provisional Regiment more 
has probably been written and said than of any other phase of 
the regiment's life, because it was the sort of thing that appealed 
strongly to the imagination and gripped the interest at once. 
It was distinctly First Provisional, and although in its beginnings 
it was limited to but two sectors of the line, time only was neces- 
sary to make it an established thing from the Ashokan to the last 
post at Hillview. 

Like the other distinctive methods of the regiment, it had birth 
in the mind of the Commanding Officer during his second swing on 
the northern end of the line following mobilization and occupa- 
tion. The Olive Bridge-Atwood sector looked thin; it was in 
wild country, hemmed in by woods and thickets close to settle- 
ments where German sympathizers were known to live and far 
from centralized aid. 

*'Dogs," said Colonel Rose, "are, I think, our answer up here. 
If they work they can be extended to other sectors. See what 
you can do with Airedales." And the Adjutant went to work on 
the establishment of a dog patrol. 

Imprimus, there was no money for the purchase of dogs. But 
Utica, the Adjutant's home, was an Airedale-breeding center. 
With this in mind, the Adjutant called Mayor James D. Smith 
on the telephone and explained the situation. At the same time 
he advised D. M. Johnson, of Utica, by wire, of the need for five 
or six Airedales for the beginnings of the work. Mayor Smith 
and Mr. Johnson busied themselves with such effect that on the 
15th of August there were shipped from Utica five dogs, two 
full-grown Airedales, Rags and Patsy, the former donated by E. 
J. Otis, of Utica, and the latter by Dr. C. J. Baldwin, of Utica; 
Betsy, a young bitch given by Albert A. Friedel; Help, from 



266 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

D. M. Johnson; and Brownie, a half Airedale, half mastiff, 
from Claude T. Firsching. D. M. Stewart of Tuckahoe later do- 
nated a full-grown Airedale Tipperary, which was sent to the 
Troop B sector; and W. T. Wood, of 146 Court Street, Brooklyn, 
furnished a big, handsome yearling, Dick. From W. H. Rob- 
erts, of Utica, came Rocket, a heavy, full-grown dog of the Eng- 
lish type, and Mrs. M. E. Gates, of Mt. Kisco, presented the regi- 
ment with Judy, a police dog. Mrs. Gates was also instru- 
mental in securing Dick. 

Of these dogs. Patsy, Rags, Help, Betsy and Brownie were 
established at Awood, where the test was to be conducted under 
the direction of the Adjutant and immediately supervised and 
carried on by Sergeant William H. Rivers, Co. A, ist Infantry, 
later Co. K, loth Infantry. The questions to be answered by the 
test were these: 

Could a patrol dog be subsisted on the kitchen scraps of five 
men without extra subsistence cost.? 

Could an Airedale be trained to the inspection of culverts and 
the brush immediately on the city property.? 

Could he be inculcated with the idea that a man not in uniform 
was a suspicious character that must be kept from the Aqueduct? 

Would the blooded animal be able to stand the weather condi- 
tions which a patrol dog must face.? 

If all these questions couldjbe answered in the affirmative, the 
test would be successful. If any one were answered in the nega- 
tive, then something else must be tried. 

The Airedale had been chosen for hi§ heart and his head, for 
the well-known sagacity, adaptability and faithfulness of the 
breed; and the judgment of the Uticans who had made the test 
possible had brought to the regiment the best of material on 
which to work: Rags and Patsy, heaviest of their type, broad and 
deep of chest, heavy-boned and full of fight; -.the younger pups, 
true-bred with the exception of Brownie, and anxious to learn. 

And the old adage that you cannot teach an old dog new tricks 
had a setback then and there. Perhaps it was because of the 
methods that were employed; perhaps it was because they were 
Airedales, kings of their tribe; perhaps it was because of the 
utter transplanting of them from one life to another; but in the 
next three months they had answered all of the questions in the 
affirmative. 

The first task was to divorce them from their former lives, and 
in this their housing meant a great deal. A line of individual 
kennels was established in the rear of the Atwood barracks and 
close to the bank of the Aqueduct itself, each kennel provided 




The Patrol Dog and His Work 

Upper left — Sergt. William Rivers and "Patsy." Right — Not Aire- 
dales, but born and bred to the line. Center — A glimpse at the Atwood 
training-school for Airedale patrol dogs; ''Storm King," one of the first 
line-bred Airedale patrol dogs. Lower — With his inspection of a vulner- 
able culvert finished, the Airedale trotted out and went to the next. 
Something in the culvert; for all the patrol dog knew it was a bomb, and 
scratching, barking, and working until he could get a hold on it or until 
help came, he fulfilled his mission. Another end of the training-school 
"line." 















ISC<>. 






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woo 


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St s i^« j 


i 

s 

5 




sSjSS as 


"SI ffi i 


i 

58 




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-■'AA 


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S5 












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' ' 
















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S 


i 


7 22 men of let Inf. Plaoed on duty. 
1 1 1 


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Charts Showing Characteristic Ebb and Flow of Regimental 
Strength in 1918 from June to November 



DOGS OF THE REGIMENT 267 

with a raised-slat platform at its doorway, where the dog might 
lie above the dampness of the ground. From each kennel to a 
wire screen fifty feet away ran a trolley wire to which the dog's 
chain was fastened by a snap-ring that traveled from one end 
of the wire to the other. And to stimulate the dog to exercise, 
his food and water were invariably placed at the far end of the 
run. They were all born fighters, and as a result their trolley wires 
were kept far enough apart to prevent mixing in the dog lines. 
This establishment cost approximately six dollars per dog. 

One man fed them, cared for them and trained them. With the 
new rank of dog sergeant. Rivers, who had raised Airedales and 
knew their ways, began his work. 

The men of the company were friendly with the dogs, but were 
not allowed to play with them, fondle or feed them. All this was 
left to Rivers. Civilians visiting the camp were encouraged to 
poke sticks at the dogs and in other ways irritate them. Their 
entire world consisted of the dog-line and the Aqueduct, and they 
were taken from one to the other and nowhere else. The only 
men they knew were men in uniform at the barracks or on the line, 
and so well was the idea of the uniform impressed on them, that 
when Capt. Hayden J. Bates, of the Quartermaster Corps, clad 
in a black rubber coat, visited the dog-line at Atwood, in the 
fall of 1917, he had his troubles. 

To teach the dog the desired work on the line he was first 
taken on walks along its length, impressed with the importance 
of the brush on either side and given to understand that it was 
a business proposition throughout. Then the culvert, cleaned of 
all stones and rubbish, was brought to his attention. On that 
sector there are many high culverts and the trainer first accom- 
panied his dogs into the interiors, later sending them through 
alone, or in the case of a shaft culvert merely in and out. 

On another visit the trainer would find a bundle of rags previ- 
ously placed on the floor of the culvert by a sentry, and the dog 
was impressed with the importance of immediately getting this 
outside, barking as he did so. Later, this bundle of rags contained 
a stone or rock in its interior, and the dog, balking at first at the 
unaccustomed weight, was cheered on with his work by the trainer, 
who worked the animal into such a high state of excitement that 
he never thereafter forgot that a bundle in a culvert was an oc- 
casion for barking. 

Finally, the time came when the instructor, standing on the 
top of the cut and cover, could order the dog down to the cul- 
vert's mouth, and the animal, running through to the shaft end, 
would bark notice that he had gone completely through, or, in 
18 



268 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

the case of a plain culvert, would emerge on the other side. Find- 
ing a package, bundle or even a stone on the culvert floor, he 
barked and tugged until it was outside and help came. 

So the training went on with the long patrols, the use of im- 
aginary bombs in the culverts, the search in the bush for imagin- 
ary, and later for real, prowlers. By the time winter set in the 
Airedale patrol was an established fact. 

In the daytime the dogs were seldom used, but at night, 
when the keen scent and the keen hearing of the Airedales were 
of the greatest advantage in the guard work, they were abroad on 
the Aqueduct once or twice in charge of the dog sergeant. Aside 
from that they were confined closely to the dog-lines. 

Naturally, they became more vicious than the ordinary dog, 
constant living in the open sharpened sight, scent and hearing to 
the uttermost, and their long midnight prowls made them strong 
and heavy. Every ounce of food eaten gave its full quota to 
strength and spirit; imbued with one idea, they ranged the cut 
and cover and the brush beside it with the single aim of finding 
something or some one. In the inspection of line and culvert 
they came to a natural division of the work. Rags and Patsy 
were the culvert specialists, while Help and Betsy ranged the 
brush. Brownie proved the case of the thoroughbred against the 
mongrel for specialized work. He fell by the wayside in the 
training school and never approached the others in ability or 
hard, systematic effort. 

There were two or three incidents with civilians on the Aqueduct, 
incidents where the dog sergeant's quick action and supreme 
control of his animals saved the offenders, and then the fame of 
the Airedale patrol went throughout the countryside. There were 
no more innocent visitors to the cut and cover at night. How far 
the story of their prowess went to the hyphenated sympathizers 
with the fatherland is a question, but the fact that few of the gen- 
eral disturbances, when the malignant forces from the German 
underworld tested and tapped the guard-line of the First Pro- 
visional, affected the Atwood-Olive Bridge sector, is significant. 

During especially troublesome times on other parts of the line 
the dogs were on various occasions loaned to other sectors, either 
singly or in pairs. Had there been sufficient funds available for 
the purchase of bitches the entire line could have been equipped 
within a year, but only natural increase could be depended on 
without funds. 

Betsy did her best. Patsy was proud and happy, and Sergeant 
Walter J. Kernan, Co. L, loth Infantry, who succeeded to Ser- 
geant Rivers' place when the latter left the Hne, nearly burst 



DOGS OF THE REGIMENT 269 

with pride in mid-May when eleven puppies squawked and 
squealed in the maternity ward at the dog-training camp. 

The plan of the survival of the fittest was decided upon in the 
raising of the pups. No special care was to be given. The usual 
worm medicines and distemper medicines, the usual cleaning, 
grooming and good food, and that was all. There would be no 
special sheltering from the weather after the first two months; 
no excusing from line duty as soon as the pups were old enough 
to get about. It was severe, but it was necessary. As a result the 
weaklings died and the strong ones lived. Two ofF-color whelps 
were given away, and the net result was Shokan, a strong dog 
that later went to Major Charles J. Lamb, commanding the bat- 
talion, Storm King, the finest pup of the lot, now owned by Mrs. 
H. M. Turner, of Chappaqua, who did so much for the First 
Provisional Regiment in the way of transportation, Atwood 
Bess and Tongore Girl all remaining by the right of nature's 
oldest law. 

About the time the pups started training, Colonel, an Aire- 
dale formerly owned by Capt. Leo C. Harte, was added to the 
Atwood school. The pups were getting the work nicely and had 
mastered the art of culverteering when the armistice told of the 
beginning of the end. But before the regiment left the line Betsy 
had registered again, this time with nine that lived and flourished, 
sons and daughters of Rags, and hardier and healthier than their 
half-brothers. 

The Airedale patrol had accomplished its purpose and was ready 
for expansion at the time when it became necessary to disband it. 
Started as a test, it developed into a proven fact, and during the 
development furnished a protection to Sector N-i that no other 
agency could have furnished. How well the gospel of "Keep 
away" was preached by the dog sergeants and their charges 
the people of that vicinity know, and how many times the crouch- 
ing shadow in the bushes beyond the city line was frightened off 
by the low, threatening growl on the other side of the wire fence 
none know but the dogs themselves. 

When the patrol was disbanded there was immediate applica- 
tion for the animals. Rags was loaned to the Eastern New York 
Reformatory at Napanoch, later returning to civil life. Patsy 
went to Sergeant Kernan, Tongore Girl to WiUiam E. Oram, of 
Lee, N. Y., Help back to his owner in Utica, and Betsy remained 
behind at Atwood until her pups came. The disposition of 
Storm King and Shokan has already been noted. The new 
pups, also carrying the names of the line, were in part given 
and in part farmed out to olHcers of the regiment, who valued 



270 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

them for their association. So passed one of the most distinc- 
tive and picturesque features of the long guard-Hne of the First 
Provisional. 

And of those other dogs — the mutts, the mongrels and the curs 
— that came to the line in the first days of occupation by National 
Guard regiments and that stayed until the last of the First Pro- 
visional's men had departed, something, too, must be told. They 
were of all sizes and shapes, their colors were of all tints and 
shades, they were often dirty, generally hungry and always 
noisy, but their tongues were warm and their noses cold, and they 
answered the eternal call that the camp and uniform hold for the 
dog, no matter whether he be mongrel or thoroughbred, well- 
housed or homeless. 

The companies of the First Provisional Regiment with their 
posts and outposts averaged 20 dogs each. That meant an aver- 
age of 250 to 300 dogs along the line of the First Provisional con- 
tinually; or, in other words, always 1,000 extra legs, 500 extra 
ears, 500 extra eyes and 250 additional and very keen noses help- 
ing the guard-work. And this does not take into account the 
comradeship of man and dog, the feeling of company and help 
that the dog on the post gave the man on the post. 

Just how far the last-named factor entered into the guard- 
work was never fully appreciated by headquarters until one night 
on an inspecting tour on the Company F line, the commanding 
officer found the boy on the last post north, at the very foot of 
Bonticou Crag itself, with a tiny bull-terrier puppy tied to the 
cover of a manhole for company. To the lonely boy on post at 
the forest's edge, where the scream of an occasional wildcat on 
the mountain, and the tracks of the black bear in the snow the 
next morning, told of other dangers than the two-legged prowler, 
the presence of that puppy meant help, comfort, and companion- 
ship, something warm and alive that loved you — but not well 
enough to stay unless you tied him there and put your overcoat 
down to keep him warm. 

A similar thing was the custom at one of the lonely posts in the 
Gould Swamp siphon, but in most instances the dogs accompanied 
the men to the posts and stayed with them until they were re- 
lieved. Some dogs, legacies of the old National Guard troops, 
preferred one or two posts to any others and covered them con- 
sistently during the night, while others followed certain men, re- 
gardless of the post to which they were assigned. 

Again, there were dogs that did not do post work at all, but 
accompanied the non-commissioned officers on their rounds of 
inspection. And there was one cat on the line that trotted out 



DOGS OF THE REGIMENT 271 

to the same post with the relief every night and slept in the tele- 
phone-box until morning. 

Some of the members of this canine line that ran from the 
aristocrats at Ashokan to the last little cur at Dunwoodie were 
left-overs from the old National Guard regiments, some of them 
were imports, and some of them were — acquisitions. And then 
there was a certain percentage of transients and casuals — dogs 
from good homes near by that could never resist the call of the 
line any longer than their respective rope, collar or chain could. 
The best answer to a question concerning their treatment was 
the fact that they stayed with the men and loved them. And of 
such a condition is the canine heaven. 

When the regiment went they went, too, disappearing little by 
little as the line thinned and their friends went back to the easy 
workaday world, where there are no siphon-houses, culverts or 
boat-holes. They went with the men that they had known in 
the long nights of cold and dreariness to places by warm fires and 
to gorged tummies, to family adoration, and the proud reference, 
"This is the dog Bob had with him on the Aqueduct." 

Friendly, watchful and helpful, the dogs of the regiment played 
a big part in its success and added no small part to the sum of 
happiness for the men who comprised it. 



1 



PAY PROBLEMS 

BY 

Captain Rowland Pell, 

Reserve List 

Disbursing Officer, First Provisional Regiment, New York Guard. 

"Me? I've been on post eight hours, 
Goin' back again to-night. 
Overtime? Yeh, in the guard-house 
If you don't. Oh, that's all right — 
We git paid a lot of money; 

Yeh, that's why we like to stay. 
Why, they pay us — even Sundays — 
Dollar twenty-five a day!" 

— From " Seven- Bent Ballads." 

IT is a military axiom that an officer assigned to special duty 
when a regiment is ordered from its home station into the 
field, should at once be impressed by the idea that his particular 
work is of the greatest importance to the welfare of the organiza- 
tion. For if he has that feeling he at once endeavors to make 
good, otherwise the organization will soon suffer the effects of 
incompetency or neglect. 

It is very hard for a line officer to be taken from the men he 
has enlisted and trained, but he should be rewarded by the thought 
that he is broadening his work, and if successful he is acting for 
the best interests of the entire regiment and is helping it. He also 
advances the welfare of his own unit by being in a position to 
compare their performance of duty with the other units. 

This was especially true with the organization of the First 
Provisional Regiment, composed of units from nearly every part 
of the State and made up from engineers, artillery, cavalry and 
infantry, and guarding the line of the New York City water supply 
with a line of posts and outposts over 150 miles in length. 

The first order from the Commanding Officer was to guard the 
line; protect all vulnerable points. That meant to get the men out 
first, then arrange to feed, house and pay them; and it was done 
in a manner to even more than satisfy the Federal authorities 
whose troops we relieved. 



PAY PROBLEMS 273 

The duties of the disbursing officer began a few days after the 
troops were located in their widely separated posts by visiting 
the most northerly post at Olive Bridge, just south of the great 
Ashokan reservoir, and proceeding down the line to each post, 
ending with the most southerly, near the Hillview reservoir just 
inside the city limits. 

There were at first 24 posts, but they were wisely, at an early 
date, consolidated to 17. 

The disbursing officer on visiting each post entered into a 
blotter the approximate amount of expenses incurred by each 
commanding officer from his entry into the field up to date, 
registering the names of the officers and numbers of enlisted men. 
He then advised that a book be procured in which all expenses 
incurred should be entered until a regular system could be ar- 
ranged. That all bills should be receipted in advance and made 
out in triplicate, attaching two to the State form No. 36 and 
attaching the third for the supply officer. The form No. 36 was 
later superseded by a special city form prepared to cover the 
various purchases necessary for so large an organization in the 
field. 

The various units were scattered along an air line of about 
100 miles, but it was necessary to go over 50 miles additional in 
order to visit each post by motor. The main roads were excel- 
lent, but those across country in many cases were very much out 
of repair and difficult for transportation, especially in wet weather. 
These conditions made the task of the supply officer very difficult 
and at first it was necessary for the various commanding officers 
to hire transportation to deliver supplies to their outposts and to 
make their purchases as best they could. This action resulted in 
a vast number of bills from venders all along the line and a cor- 
responding task for the supply officer to check off the items and 
prepare the vouchers for approval. 

For convenient reference the disbursing officer kept a list of 
the vouchers charged to each unit in a blotter, with the dates of 
receipt, approval and forwarding to the Adjutant-Generars office. 
Later, when transportation was furnished, the supply officer was 
able to purchase in bulk and deliver supplies — thus the men were 
fed — and the accounts passed for payment. And as the soldier 
cannot do his duty properly without food, so the officer in charge 
of the supplies must be considered most essential to the welfare 
of a regiment in the field. 

Next to the problem of feeding the soldier is the question of 
his pay. Since the days of Caesar the well-fed and well-paid 
soldier has been most susceptible of the discipline which wins the 



274 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

battles of the world. Next to his food, the soldier looks for 
his pay, either to purchase necessities for himself or to remit to 
his home. Without it he is fretful and worried, but if he has 
signed his pay-roll and knows he is going to receive it about a 
certain date, his mind is free from care. 

When this regiment first came into the field the State form of 
pay-rolls was not made until the end of August, 1917, conse- 
quently the first pay was not received until September 23, 1917. 
There was much delay, as many of the officers were not familiar 
with the methods of preparing the rolls and did not realize the 
necessity of having the men sign their names. The first pay-rolls 
were distributed by the disbursing officer under the direction of 
Lieut. -Col. Edward V. Howard, A. A. G., in charge of pay, who 
very kindly prepared a dummy roll which was used as a sample. 

The rolls were collected and returned to Colonel Howard at 
the Arsenal, New York City. When the pay-checks were ready. 
Colonel Howard went up the line, leaving the checks and rolls 
with the commanding officers of the various units. 

In September, 1917, there were thirty different rolls paid at 
various dates from Oct. 9th to Nov. ist by Major Frederick 
Crossett. The rolls were sent in at different dates as the units 
were relieved by permanent troops, many rolls being returned for 
correction, which caused delay. In October the present disbursing 
officer was placed in charge of the pay-rolls, of which there were 
32. The greater number were taken up Oct. 29th and the checks 
were ready Nov. 7th, but there were later rolls not paid until the 
13th and 2ist of the month. 

There were 26 pay-rolls for November, taken up on the 30th 
and paid Dec. 14th. 

In December it was decided to have a Xmas pay-roll made up 
to the 15th. There were 28 rolls taken up Dec. i8th and 20th 
and paid Jan. 5th, 1918. The second half were, taken up Dec. 
30th and paid Jan. i6th. The January rolls were taken up Jan. 
29th and paid Feb. i6th. February taken up on the 26th and 
paid March 15th. March taken up on the 27th and paid April 
1 2th. 

In April the sanitary roll, prison roll, hospital rolls for east 
and west side of the Hudson River, were omitted, the names of 
the men being carried on their respective company rolls, which 
were taken up April 29th and paid May loth. The May checks 
were ready June 8th, the earliest date thus far. June checks were 
ready July 12th; July on Aug. 9th; August on Sept. 7th; September 
on Oct. 5th — another new record. October checks were taken up 
on the 27th and sixteen units from New York to New Paltz paid 



PAY PROBLEMS 275 

by II P.M., Nov. 2nd, the other three units north of New Paltz 
by 10 A.M. the following day. November checks were ready Dec. 
5th and December on Jan. 2nd, 1919. 

The amounts of the rolls were between ^60,000 and ^70,000, 
the largest amount being for November, 1918, $70,925.51, with 
about 2,000 individual checks, each of which was handled by the 
disbursing officer, who checked the amount off with the officer 
receiving the same. 

The early preparation of the pay-roll and the signing of it by 
each man is most essential to the payment. When the rolls were 
first made up but few were completely signed and many errors 
occurred which made delay. 

The regimental paper. The Watchdogs rendered great service 
by publishing articles on the pay-rolls showing standing of each 
unit as to results in signatures, and many companies sent in their 
rolls with all the signatures complete, very few showing many 
blanks. 

As the distances were great between company headquarters 
and outpost, it was difficult at times to get signatures, especially 
when men were detailed, in cases, over fifty miles away, or prison- 
ers, or in hospitals. In this case a *' yellow sHp'' or city receipt 
was furnished. 

The record pay-roll was that of Company G, Capt. John W. 
Johnson, for September, 19 18, which contained 226 names, all 
of which was signed up. 

The great difficulty was the final distribution of checks. Some 
captains were always able to give them out, having addressed 
envelopes for those who had been relieved, but in the case of 
men who were A. W. O. L. with equipment or who owed fines, the 
checks were returned to the Comptroller of the City of New York, 
marked "hold,'' to be released only by the officer returning them. 
There was no difficulty in distributing the pay-checks due officers, 
but with the enlisted men there was, in many cases, neglect to 
provide home addresses when men were released, due to their own 
carelessness or oversight on the part of their officers. 

Several foreign officers made the pay trip with the disbursing 
officer and expressed themselves as greatly surprised at the ex- 
tent of the territory necessary to cover to reach the various posts. 
They were also much impressed by the rapidity with which the 
checks amounting to between $4,000 and $7,000 for each of the 
eighteen various units were received and receipted for. 

The round trip of over 325 miles from New York City to 
Ashokan reservoir was made by automobile in all kinds of weather. 
During the severe winter of 1917-1918, it was necessary to always 



276 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

carry an ax and shovel in the car to cut out of ruts or dig out 
of snowdrifts. On one pay trip the car had to be abandoned at 
White Plains and the journey was made by train, sleigh, horse- 
back and on foot through deep snow with the temperature around 
zero. 

It may be of interest to describe the route, for probably there 
never was and never will be a State regiment covering so long a 
direct line. The Second Provisional covered a line of nearly 400 
miles, but it was a scattered line and not continuous. 

Starting from the Municipal Building, New York City, the 
route was up to the city limits by Central Avenue to Palmer 
Avenue, Yonkers, where was the headquarters of Company K; 
thence back to Central Avenue to Fort Hill Road to Company L; 
from there over the ridge to Company I, at Elmsford; thence 
towards White Plains to Valhalla to Company M and 3rd Bat- 
talion headquarters, thence north through Pleasantville and 
Chappaqua to Company A at Millwood, and then to Ossining or 
Croton Lake for headquarters and Supply Company. The next 
post northerly was Company D on the Crompound road near 
Peekskill and then over Locust Avenue to Company B at Cort- 
landtville. The route was then over the Boston Post Road to 
Brown Garage, where the commanding officer of Company C, 
at Nelsonville near Cold Spring generally met the disbursing 
officer, receiving his pay-checks in the road if clear, or in a near-by 
farm-house if stormy. The Post Road was then followed up the 
Fishkill village and through Beacon to the Newburgh ferry, going 
through Newburgh. The next post was the Machine Gun Com- 
pany at Vail's Gate or Little Britain; thence north through St. 
Andrews-St. Elmo to Co. C at Gardiner's or Sherwood Corners. 
New Paltz, headquarters of the 2nd Battalion, was generally a 
resting-point before going up to Company F on the Shawangum 
Mountain, near Lake Mohonk; via High Falls arid Stone Ridge, 
Company H at the Peak was reached and thence over a spur of 
the Catskills to Company E at Olive Bridge near the Ashokan 
reservoir, which was the most northerly post. The return trip 
was made through Kingston, crossing the river to Rhinebeck, 
and down the east bank of the Hudson River. The scenery was 
beautiful and in pleasant weather the trip was delightful, but there 
were many stormy days and many miles of muddy, slippery, 
snowy rough roads. 

Messrs. Wolfe, Newkirk and Berrigan, of the City Pay Depart- 
ment, made the trip on different occasions and were much im- 
pressed by the experience and methods of payments. 

All officers serving in regiments liable for field duty should at 



PAY PROBLEMS 277 

once prepare themselves for the necessary procedures for sub- 
sistence, transportation and pay. Every officer should be re- 
quired to prepare a dummy pay-roll, to follow the printed in- 
structions and to understand the necessity of having it ready 
for signature on the first day of the month and to personally 
see that the men have signed up as directed. Organizations 
should be provided with pay-rolls before leaving their home sta- 
tions, and to have them ready for immediate signature. 

The disbursing officer has been termed the ''disturbing officer," 
for it is his duty to insist upon proper performance of all detail 
necessary to secure payment of bills for transportation, subsist- 
ence, medical care, rent and many other necessary expenses, 
and to have the pay-rolls ready for approval at the stated date. 
As these important duties are vested in the disbursing officer, it 
would surely seem that this officer is a most essential one. 

The pay-roll of the First Provisional Regiment, N. Y. G., is 
the largest amount ever paid to any regiment in State service in 
this country, and the monthly pay probably greater than any 
regiment in the United States Army up to the beginning of the 
Great War. 

The hearty and sincere thanks of the regiment are due to the 
men who helped make the speedy payments possible: Capt. 
Forbes Dunderdale and his staff at the Adjutant-General's office, 
under the direction of the Adjutant-General, used every effort 
to accompHsh the rolls for dehvery in New York. No easy task 
when one stops to consider that it meant figuring out nearly 
2,000 separate amounts, besides the checking off the names. 

When the rolls reached the Finance Division of the Comp- 
troller's office all the officials very kindly made use of every 
facility to hurry the payments. Especial thanks are due the 
Deputy Comptrollers, Hon. David E. Kemlo and Hon. Frank J. 
Prial; Messrs. Elmer D. Newkirk, Edward E. Berrigan, Christo- 
pher Morrell, John Plunkett, who signs one hundred checks a 
minute, of the Central Pay Division; Messrs. James T. Curtin and 
Harry Walsh of the Mayor's Warrant Division, and Mr. Thomas 
J. Dougherty of the Comptroller's office. 



THE LEGAL PHASE 

BY 

Captain Theodore T. Lane, 9Th C. A. C, 
Judge-Advocate of the Regiment. 

THE legal work of the First Provisional Regiment, being prin- 
cipally trials for breaches of military law, naturally covered a 
multitude of sins. 

As summary court in all cases of wrong-doing in the ist Bat- 
talion, my trial work dealt with the deeds and misdeeds of about 
450 men along a stretch of about 30 miles. Under the conditions 
governing our form of service, it was impossible to have a fixed day 
and place set for holding court, or to designate one locality where 
the men must always be brought for trial. Transportation diffi- 
culties, especially in the winter, would have made such arrange- 
ment impracticable. 

Therefore the summary court roamed at large and tried the 
accused at the various camps where they happened to be sta- 
tioned. 

The usual method was for a commanding officer of a sector to 
communicate with the court, stating that he had a number of 
men held for trial at a certain camp or outpost; the summary 
court would then set a certain day for calling at the camp and 
holding court. The fact that I was also Inspecting Officer of the 
Battalion, and as such was continually visiting the different 
camps and parts of the line, made this itinerant court work fit in 
very nicely with my other duties. 

The summary court has power to try enlisted men for breaches 
of discipline and violations of laws governing the military or- 
ganization and is limited as to its power of punishment. The fact 
that we were at first instructed by the A. G. O. to proceed ac- 
cording to the rules of the U. S. Army Manual of Courts Martial, 
and were subsequently placed under new regulations as to punish- 
ments by Sections 132, 133 and 134 of the Military Law of the 
State of New York, caused somewhat of a change in the punish- 
ments imposed. 

The New York Guard had rather a hard time getting its bear- 



THE LEGAL PHASE 279 

ings at the outset, owing to lack of definite legislation, until sub- 
sequently the amended Military Law of the State as promulgated 
by General Orders No. 29, A. G. O., June 23, 19 17, for the Na- 
tional Guard, was by the terms of the Stivers Bill, made applicable 
to the New York Guard. 

With the limited number of officers and the extent of our 
guarded territory — approximately 100 miles — it was a difficult 
matter to take from their sectors and bring together five officers 
for a General Court Martial, and word having been received from 
Brigade Headquarters that G. C. M.'s were not to be looked upon 
as popular episodes, the Summary Court gradually took over many 
cases that ordinarily would have gone before a General Court 
Martial. 

In our regiment of from 1,200 to 1,500 men, with the personnel 
constantly changing (as was ours, because of the continual re- 
leases and replacements of men) almost every article of war was 
breached. In all, with an average of about 1,300 men at any 
one time, a total of about 8,000 names have been carried on our 
rolls. 

I tried by Summary Court over 550 cases, most of them cover- 
ing several charges; in Geheral Courts Martial I was trial Judge- 
Advocate in over 25 cases. The offenses included absence without 
official leave, desertion, larceny, insubordination, assaults on 
privates and non-commissioned officers, sleeping on post, desert- 
ing post, and shootings resulting in the wounding of fellow-soldiers. 
The sentences imposed by G. C. M. ran from 15 days confinement 
to confinement for 6 years and 6 months, besides dishonorable 
discharge, forfeiture of pay, etc. In addition to these cases, there 
were many tried by the Summary Court officers of the 2nd and 
3rd Battalions. 

Under Par. 130 of the Military Law of New York State, the 
Military Courts of the National Guard are set forth as Courts of 
Inquiry, General Courts Martial, Special Courts Martial and 
Summary Courts Martial; in construction, procedure, forms, 
cognizance of subject and powers, except as to punishments ^ they 
are similar to the Courts Martial provided for in the United 
States Army. Sections 132, 133 and 134 of the N. Y. Military 
Law set forth the powers of punishment of General, Special and 
Summary Courts respectively. 

General Courts Martial may impose fines not exceeding 200 
dollars; may sentence to forfeiture of pay and allowances; to a 
reprimand; to dismissal or dishonorable discharge; to reduction 
of non-commissioned officers to the ranks; or any two or more of 
such punishments may be combined. 



28o H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

Special Courts Martial may not try commissioned officers, but 
have the same powers of punishment as General Courts Martial, 
except that fines imposed may not exceed one hundred dollars. 
Summary Courts Martial may try enlisted men for breaches of 
discipline and violation of laws governing the military organiza- 
tion; may impose a fine not exceeding twenty-five dollars for a 
single offense; sentence non-coms, to reduction to the ranks, sen- 
tence to forfeiture of pay and allowances. 

By Par. 135, all Courts Martial of the National Guard — and by 
the Stivers Bill, the New York Guard — may impose sentences of 
confinement in lieu of fines authorized, but not over one day for 
each dollar of fine authorized. 

By virtue of the Stivers Bill, the Military Courts of the New 
York Guard were made similar in all respects to those of the old 
National Guard, but before that bill was passed an uncertainty 
existed as to just what the New York Guard Courts Martial pro- 
cedure should be. 

As a matter of fact, the punishments allowed do not appear to 
be inadequate when applied to infractions by men engaged only 
in armory or practice work, but when troops are in active service 
in the field, there are some offenses for which the punishments 
prescribed appear insufficient. Murder, manslaughter, rape, mu- 
tiny, surrendering a command, treachery, spying and other 
offenses do not seem adequately covered by the maximum punish- 
ments allowed a G. C. M. by Par. 132 of the Military Law. 

Par. 14 of the Military Law, stating that the Articles of War 
of the United States Army shall apply to the State Military forces 
except when inconsistent with the State Military Law, states fur- 
ther that no punishment prescribing the death penalty shall be 
inflicted except in time of actual war, invasion or insurrection de- 
clared by proclamation of the Governor to exist, and then only 
after approval by the Governor of the sentence inflicting such 
punishment. 

But under Sections 132, 133 and 134 of the Military Law setting 
forth the powers of punishment prescribed for the Military Courts 
of this State, it seems that no death sentence may be imposed. 

However, this is not a discussion of laws and statutes, but a 
series of reminiscences. 

Twice were writs of habeas corpus sued out against the regiment. 
In the first a soldier had been accused of attempted rape, assault, 
and other acts, and by arrangement was held by the military au- 
thorities, but lodged in a jail, pending trial by G. C. M. An attorney 
sued out a writ for the man's release from jail on the ground that 
he was not charged with an oflFense against the Military Law, and 



THE LEGAL PHASE 281 

further, that the military authorities were delaying his trial. The 
return to the writ stated that he was charged with violation of 
various articles of war; that charges had been drawn for a G. C. M. 
(certified copy of charges annexed) and that he would be tried by 
G. C. M. as soon as same was named by the Adjutant-General 
of the State. The man remained in custody, but if the writ 
had been successful he would still have been obliged to report 
to his company, and would have been arrested by the military 
authorities and taken to camp a prisoner immediately upon his 
release from the jail. By arrangement with the District Attorney, 
this man was afterward turned over to the civil authorities for 
trial, as Brigade Headquarters considered that the punishment 
which a General Court Martial could inflict under Par. 132 
would not be sufficient if the man were found guilty. 

The second habeas corpus was sued out by a parent to produce 
the son in court and withdraw him from active duty in order 
that he might attend school. 

Three times we refused to produce the relator in court, and 
three times the case was adjourned, until the soldier was released 
by proper military authority from active duty, as the quarantine 
which had been placed on his camp had been lifted. The return 
to the writ set forth the following reasons for failing to produce 
the man in court: 

1. A soldier under a valid enlistment contract cannot be said 
to be a "person imprisoned or restrained in his liberty" under 
Par. 2015 of the Code of Civil Procedure, providing for writ of 
habeas corpus for such persons. 

2. Par. 2028, Code of Civil Procedure, contains the following: 
"When a person who has been duly served with either writ, refuses 
or neglects, without sufficient cause shown by him, fully to obey" — 
etc. The question as to whether or not the cause shown is suffi- 
cient is for the court to decide. 

Our contention was that the following are sufficient causes for 
failing to produce the relator in court: 

{a) The fact that a quarantine has been placed upon a camp 
of which the soldier is a member. 

{b) The fact that the soldier is posted at a place, under proper 
military orders, to guard public utilities. 

(r) The fact that the posting of properly enlisted soldiers as 
guards over public utilities can be made ineffectual, and such 
protection taken from said utilities, by simultaneous issuances of 
writs of habeas corpus, if the courts hold that the fact that soldiers 
are on such duty is not "sufficient cause" for not producing the 
soldiers in court. 



282 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

A ruling on these points was very much desired by the Com- 
manding Officer of the regiment, to estabHsh a precedent should 
such questions arise subsequently. 

An opinion was rendered by Hon. Joseph Morschauser, Justice 
of the Supreme Court of the State of New York, as follows: 

Supreme Court 
Dutchess County 



The People ex reL Melville C. Butler 



vs. 



Colonel John B. Rose, et al. 



Upon application duly made a writ of habeas corpus hav- 
ing been duly allowed and duly served herein, and on the 
return date a return having been duly made from which it 
appears that the said relator is in the military service of 
the State of New York and which military service has charge 
of the protection of the New York Aqueduct for over 
one hundred (loo) miles, and that in and about said camp 
and in the community there is now raging an epidemic 
known as the Spanish influenza. It further appears from 
said return that many of the soldiers engaged in the mili- 
tary service are ill and suflTering from the Spanish influenza, 
I am satisfied that the return made by the commanding offi- 
cer is sufficient at this time and that in furtherance of jus- 
tice and to protect the rights, welfare and safety of the 
public no action should be taken at this time upon said 
writ until there is a change in the existing conditions. 
Where such conditions exist as have been presented on 
the return it is not necessary for the commanding officer 
to produce the relator in court. Conditions may arise 
such that it would be impracticable, inconvenient and 
unsafe to produce a relator in court upon a writ where his 
presence is required in the guarding of a large and important 
public work. It is sufficient to return in my judgment at 
this time that the relator is needed in the military service 
for the protection or the guarding of such Aqueduct. 

Adjournment is duly granted until such times as condi- 
tions as mentioned herein are such that he can with safety 
to the public as well as convenience to the military authori- 
ties be produced in court. 




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Friends of the Regiment 

Upper left — Col. J. Weston Meyers. Right — Lieut. Herbert L. Lock- 
wood. Center — Capt. Charles Carlock of the Red Cross. Lower left — 
Supt. Vincent Phelps of the Macy Estate. Right — Major Trimble and 
Lieut.-Col. Howard Smith. 



THE LEGAL PHASE 283 

The Summary Court acts as judge and jury. It hears the evi- 
dence, decides as to the guilt or innocence of the accused, and 
imposes the sentence. And here it may be stated, that inasmuch 
as fully 95 per cent, of the men tried by me as Summary Court 
pleaded "guilty," and of the 5 per cent, who pleaded "not guilty" 
at least three-quarters were proved guilty by the evidence ad- 
duced, it is fairly evident that the officers of the First Provisional 
Regiment were not in the habit of preferring charges unless they 
had good and sufficient reason and good and sufficient evidence 
to support the charges. 

Of the General Court Martial cases tried, in every case the 
accused was proved guilty of at least one of the charges preferred. 

Sentences varied, even for identical offenses, owing to various 
causes — the man's former record, his previous convictions, his 
attitude — whether regretful, indifferent, impertinent, brazen, etc. 
The endeavor on the part of some, when tried in the presence of 
their comrades, to appear devil-may-care and reckless, has brought 
many of them to further grief. For example, one man tried for 
getting drunk and raising a disturbance in a neighboring town, 
when sentenced turned away with the remark to his comrades 
that he wished he had some more out of the same bottle. He was 
promptly brought up again on a new charge and given another 
sentence. This little episode had a salutary effect on the remainder 
of the group who were awaiting trial for the same offense. 

Many were the excuses given for the various transgressions. 

One man, tried for being absent without official leave — known 
as A. W. O. L. — pleaded hopefully that he had gone home, found 
that his mother was tired, and had stayed around the house to 
help her wash the dishes, make the beds, etc. This filial devotion 
was very affecting, but when I asked him (on a guess) why his 
sister did not help his mother, he said his sister worked all day; 
when asked further (another wild shot) why his other sister did 
not help, his imagination failed him; he muttered that she was 
too lazy, and then gave up in disgust. It had not occurred to him 
to deny that he had any sisters. 

Another, arrested in New York and brought back to his camp, 
after being A. W. O. L. for several days, stated that he had been 
sick at home. When asked (chance shot again) who the girl was 
with whom he had been out walking he said it was only his sister. 
The natural inquiry followed: How, if he was sick at home, could 
he be out walking with a girl? This seemed to puzzle even his 
facile mind. 

In all excuses for overstaying leave, the query, "Why did you 
not telephone, telegraph or write, explaining the circumstances 
19 



284 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

and asking for an extension?" generally resulted in confusion. 
One optimist hopefully explained that he had earnestly desired 
to telephone, but didn't have the price, and, unfortunately, the 
idea of telegraphing or writing had never occurred to him. 

By an amazing coincidence, practically all of the A. W. O. L.'s 
who were arrested and brought back were just about to start 
back to camp when caught. 

In trials for striking or refusing to obey a non-commissioned 
officer, there was generally a tale to the effect that the wicked 
non-com. had prefaced his orders by a profane greeting, known 
as "calling me out of my name," and great show of righteous 
indignation and manly determination not to allow a non-com. to 
put it over on a free-born American citizen. 

Fights were always started by "the other fellow," but by ex- 
ercising a great liberality in allowing each man to tell his story 
and to say all he could in his own behalf, the truth was generally 
developed. For I found that after the charge and specifications 
had been read and the plea taken, the simple words, "Well, 
Private N., what have you got to say about it? You needn't 
talk if you don't want to," opened wide the flood-gates, and before 
the accused had finished his vehement protestations he had gotten 
so entranced with the sound of his own voice that he invariably 
let slip something fatal, and a couple of questions later on threw 
him into a hopeless mass of contradictory explanations. 

The frequency with which the men sentenced to forfeiture of 
pay would suddenly recollect a mother at home was astonishing. 
Having had their fun, enjoyed their parties and caused various 
degrees of trouble, the culprit when brought to trial and sentenced 
would advance the mother plea and conversation would ensue: 

Court: "Didn't you have a mother at the time you engaged in 
this breach of regulations?" 

Accused: "Yes, sir." 

Court: "And you didn't care a rap about what your mother 
might suflFer from your acts while you were having your good time, 
did you?" 

Accused: (No answer). 

I have met with some surprising requests, such as the following, 
when a man had been sentenced to forfeiture of pay and a term 
of confinement: "Would the captain make it more confinement 
and take off the forfeiture of pay?" Whereupon he would be re- 
minded that the Court was endeavoring to punish him, not to 
oblige him. 

I asked one of these petitioners, sarcastically, if he would not 
like me to present him with a theater ticket, but he looked at me 



THE LEGAL PHASE 285 

blankly and said that he wouldn't be able to use it. I have not 
tried sarcasm since. 

Which reminds me of the case of one prisoner who was tried 
for stealing four dollars from a fellow-prisoner, and, after pleading 
guilty, remarked, "Anyway, he couldn't use it. He was in the 
jug." "So were you," retorted the injured one. "Well, I was going 
to get out the next day," said the pilferer, in justification. 

Which again reminds me of a story Major Burnett tells of a 
prisoner calling out of a cell window to a boy in the street, "Hey, 
Bill, what time is it.?" "Aw, wot's it to yer," said the boy; "yer 
ain't going anywhere." 

Occasionally a private, advised by some clever fellow-culprit 
who wished to show how the idea would work out, would refuse 
to sign the consent to trial by Summary Court, which was printed 
on the Form No. 123. This consent is unnecessary in the case of a 
private, since the law limited the term of confinement to which 
a Summary Court might sentence a man to twenty-five days for 
an offense. But as I always preferred to have their signatures, 
if possible, I would ask him if he preferred trial by G. C. M. with 
a court of officers, a reporter, and a typewritten record of the 
evidence to go on file in the State records, and call his attention 
to the fact that a General Court Martial or Special Court Martial 
had far more power of punishment than a Summary Court. This 
generally changed his attitude; but if he still refused to consent, 
I tried him, anyway, to his surprise. 

Different men are affected differently by the various punish- 
ments. To some men a term of confinement means nothing; the 
disgrace of wearing blue jeans and being a prisoner does not affect 
them; the only thing that "gets under the skin" is loss of pay. 
To others the shame of imprisonment is worse than the loss of pay. 

Some non-com. s when "busted" show no regret — even seem 
relieved that they are privates once more, with less responsibility. 
These men stay "busted." 

Others feel the loss of their stripes keenly, and most of these, 
by subsequent good work, regain their chevrons and seldom lose 
them a second time. 

Before trying the men I always found it of great value to con- 
sult with their commanding officer as to the characters and types 
of the men to be tried. The C. O. of a company knows better 
what punishment will properly affect his men than the Summary 
Court, who knows little about the individuals unless they are old 
offenders and have been up before him previously. 

The removal of one man from a small group of apparent "bad 
actors" will often be the salvation of the remainder of the group, 



286 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

for there is always a coterie of weak-minded youths misled by the 
bad example of some "dare-devil" whom they admire. 

In the case of five ex-prisoners brought to trial for "beating 
up" a private who had been a prison guard and performed his 
duties properly, it took two hours to get the true facts. The 
five denied the act and had combined on a beautiful story; the 
man beaten was the only witness against them. After nearly two 
hours of ceaseless rapid-fire questioning one man and then another 
forgot something he or one of his pals had said, contradictions 
began to fly and the psychological moment arrived. "Well, 
Private A," I remarked, "you say so-and-so, but remember 
Private B said so-and-so a few minutes ago, and Private C said 
such and such. Now see here. A, do you mean to say that B is a 
liar, or is it Private C? Private B, do you hear what A says? Are 
you lying to me, or is A lying to me about you.?" etc., etc. 

A moment more and all five were at loggerheads, the esprit de 
corps of the alliance was gone and the beautiful story was a wreck. 

Two men had been the strong-minded ones, two others had 
taken a hand in the game because they "didn't want to be quit- 
ters," and one claimed snow-white innocence in the matter, basing 
his claim upon the assertion that he only danced around the fight 
and yelled, "Kill the bastard! Kill the bastard!" 

One incident proved that man's best friend, the dog, is not 
always to be relied upon. Walking through the woods along the 
cut and cover on an inspection tour, about three o'clock one winter 
morning, I passed a post where a sentry should have been, but — 
I walked on to the next post and discerned a dark mass in the 
snow. Approaching quietly, I was almost upon it when a piece 
of the dark mass broke away and came for me, barking wonderfully 
for such a small fraction. The remainder of the mass arose and 
resolved itself into two sentries, very much startled. In the sub- 
sequent trial, all they had to say was, "Gee! we never thought the 
dog would fall asleep, too." 

Another inspection tour developed the stubbornness with which 
some men can cling to an idea. On another part of the line, about 
1.30 one night, I found a sentry sitting down, back against a tree, 
sound asleep. Taking his rifle and hiding it, I poked him in the 
ribs with my foot. He sprang up, recognized me and stood 
blinking. "Asleep.?" I asked. "Oh no. Captain." "Did you hear 
me coming?" "Oh yes, sir. I was just resting, but I knew it was 
you and was just getting up. I wasn't asleep." "Let me see your 
rifle." This should have settled it. But no. This resourceful 
youth explained that he knew I was taking his rifle and had not 
protested because he was afraid I might get angry if he stopped 



THE LEGAL PHASE 287 

me. And at his trial he stuck to his tale with a firmness worthy 
of a better cause. 

Again, night inspection, sentry asleep. Gentle awakening, and 
story. 

Sentry: *' Captain, I was sick, awful sick." 

Captain: "Did you report sick or call the relief.?" 

Sentry: "No, sir. I got sick after I came on post and thought 
I'd be all right again. And I was so sick I put my lunch and sat 
down for a minute just before you came." 

Captain: "You say you vomited.?" 

Sentry: "Yes, sir, something awful." 

Captain: "All right, here's a flash-light; now show me the awful 
evidence." 

Total defeat. This man stood trial and pleaded guilty without 
reference on his part to his awful sickness. 

I have noticed a strange lack of appreciation on the part of 
many non-com. s as to why they are more severely punished for 
infractions of the Articles than privates for the same infractions. 
They do not seem to realize that an oflPense by a non-commissioned 
officer, who is supposed to set an example, is worse than the same 
off"ense committed by a private. 

While there were few cases of drunkenness in the regiment, 
nevertheless they occasionally cropped out, and the invariable 
story was, "I only had one little drink, but it got me because Tm 
not used to it." "Where did you get it.?" "Why, a man Td never 
seen before came up to me and asked me if I wanted a drink." 
Summary Court, wearil}^, "A colored man.?" Culprit, "Yes, sir, 
a colored man." 

Turning again to excuses for A. W. O. L., the following is an old 
stand-by. "Yes, sir. I moped because my mother was sick." 
"Did you explain that and ask for leave.?" "No, sir, I was afraid 
if I asked for leave I wouldn't get it, so I took a mope." 

Parenthetically, "taking a mope" is the same as "taking a 
French." 

Another staple excuse for A. W. O. L. is this: "My brother was 
home on leave from Camp Merritt and he wanted to see me." 
"If your brother wanted to see you, couldn't he visit you at your 
camp and save you a court martial.?" "Well, sir, I never thought 
of that." 

I recall one man who, after seven days A. W. O. L. and arrest, 
explained that his brother was in the 27th Division; that his 
mother told him the 27th Division was about to sail from France; 
so he stayed home, waiting for his brother to arrive. 

Two men away on leave, overstayed and announced the follow- 



288 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

ing tragic journey. Being broke, they "hopped a freight" at a 
certain town near Albany, expecting to sHp off at Cold Spring. But 
the freight did not stop at Cold Spring and their first chance to 
get off was at Peekskill. Nothing daunted, they adorned another 
freight going north, again with the excellent idea of getting off at 
Cold Spring; but this freight slid through Cold Spring at about 
forty miles an hour and detained them until they had arrived at 
the town whence they started. This would have discouraged most 
men, but these were of sterner caliber; so they jumped another 
freight going south, roared through Cold Spring again, in despair 
fell asleep, and awoke in time to detrain at Ossining. All confidence 
lost in the freight route, they borrowed car-fare from some Com- 
pany A soldiers and finally arrived in Cold Spring, victims of per- 
sistence. 

Sometimes, in one command I have tried one man, at others 
ten or fifteen. On one occasion there had been an epidemic of 
A. W. O. L. in one command, and the delinquents marched in so 
continuously that we always referred to that time as the day they 
were "tried by platoons.'* 

On the night of Dec. 31, 1917, in a shed at Millwood, by lantern- 
light, I tiied twenty-six cases between 10 p.m. and midnight, 
but they were fortunate in their time of trial, for I had to be 
lenient on New-Year's eve. 

On that day, besides the cases at Millwood, I tried men at 
Peekskill State Camp, Cortlandtville, and Crompound road, near 
Yorktown Heights; in all, twenty-nine, making a total for the day 
of sixty-five cases. This was of course a most unusual occurrence, 
and was the result of a desire to "clean up" all bad records before 
the new year began. Sometimes weeks have passed without any 
call for Summary Court. 

On Jan. 3, 1918, a number of G. C. M. cases were set for 
trial at New Paltz, on the west side of the Hudson, near Highland. 
Our journey from Croton Lake included two trips across the Hud- 
son on the ice. This was a full day, for eight complete G. C. M. 
trials were held on that day; and about one o'clock in the morning 
Major Burnett, President of the Court, Captain Pell, one of the 
members, the Judge-Advocate, and Mr. Moore, the reporter, 
shivering and weary, tramped across ice-hummocks on the frozen 
Hudson and climbed up the long steeps of Poughkeepsie, thorough- 
ly "fed up" on Courts Martial. 

We were fortunate in obtaining for our G. C. M.'s the services 
of Mr. Charles W. Moore, of New York. He was always ready to 
do his part, other court work permitting, even though the com- 
pensation allowed was small, considering the time and trouble in- 



THE LEGAL PHASE 289 

volved and the distance traveled. The G. C. M. record has a 
peculiar form of its own, and a stenographer unfamiliar with that 
form would cause considerable delay and confusion in getting the 
record properly completed. 

One remarkable thing about this trial work, and one which, 
it seems to me, redounds to the credit of the men and their sense 
of justice, is the fact that none of them, to my knowledge, ever 
seemed to bear any grudge because of their punishment. 

I have gone inspecting and found on post sentries who had just 
been released from a term of confinement imposed by me, and we 
have discussed the various cases with interest and laughed over 
some of the attempted *' alibis" that did not work; but never have 
I seen any sign of ill feeling. The men take their medicine without 
whining; they have their dance and they pay the piper if they have 
to, without complaint, and there is nothing personal involved. 
They break the regulations. If they are caught and tried, their 
next move is to outwit the court. If they fail in this, it's un- 
fortunate, but they ** didn't get away with it. Better luck next 
time." 



MORALE 

"It ain't so much the things you eat, 

Or what you have to wear; 
It ain't the double tricks that count, 

Or how the sergeants swear; 
But the thing that makes me want to bust 

The military law 
Is when I can't get off to see 
My girl in Chappaqua." 

— "Seven-Bent Ballads," 

PART I 

Religious Activities 

"/"^UTS plus esprit de corps equals morale." 

vj It is the regimental chaplain's definition, given at one of 
his lectures before a training-class of line representatives at bead- 
quarters, and it is injected at this juncture that the subdivisions 
of that portion of this history relating to morale may be better 
understood by the average reader. 

The chaplain preached a sermon on the subject of guts, once, 
and it was a good one. That short, ugly word is not used in the 
best of society. There it is called stamina, or "the stuff a man is 
made of." But when one is talking to men, and not at them, he 
must use the same kind of language that his hearers use. A mis- 
sionary would have a healthy time trying to speak English to a 
crowd of Mongols from one of the inner provinces of the globe's 
great Yellow Mother, and by that same sign, there is little ad- 
vantage in pure Browning English when one is addressing folks 
(not people, please) who in their own parlance, "talk United 
States." 

So if there is any criticism of the use of that word here it must 
be placed on the chaplain, who as a regimental scapegoat has no 
equal. He will tell you that himself. 

So far, this has more of the appearance of a digression than an 
exposition along the lines of the platform promised in the second 
paragraph. But to a consideration of Morale. 



MORALE 291 

If the chaplain's definition of morale is taken at face value, 
and there is no reason why it should not be, then the inculcation 
of esprit de corps, and the development of natural, though perhaps 
latent stamina, are in the large part all that is necessary to develop 
morale. Now, there are as many different ways of developing 
morale as there are classifications of persons in whom morale has 
to be developed, and the needs for which it is to be developed. 

The First Provisional Regiment was made up at one time and 
another of units drawn from nearly every organization of the 
New York Guard and from practically every portion of the State. 
It was presumably the most catholic (and the word is used here 
in its broad sense) organization that ever entered the field on 
State service. Its ranks held everything from bank presidents 
to the janitors of the banks themselves, and from the hardy, 
browned, big-handed, keen-eyed farmer boy of Central New York 
to the slight, under-fed, cop-dodging, white-faced, work-hating, 
Sub.-L product who came into the field because it was "some 
place to go." 

Keeping that in mind, it will be seen that only a very broad 
policy, administered by very broad men, could get the answer. 
Everything must be fundamental, primary and direct. The 
esprit de corps of the regiment had been given its beginnings by 
Colonel Rose at Lambert Farm and Peekskill, and had been 
nourished by the officers and through the medium of The Watch- 
dog, but these things alone could not get the entire answer de- 
sired. As a basis on which everything must depend there must 
be the proper attitude and frame of mind; the proper atmosphere. 

When Colonel Rose issued instructions to the various units of 
the regiment for church services, either held at the camps or 
made available for the men in near-by communities, it was not 
only for the purpose of creating a religious atmosphere, but for 
the purpose of providing the balance that means so much in the 
life of a man in field service. Since man is inherently and in- 
stinctively religious, lack of opportunity in that direction results 
in a condition which is not healthy for the man or the work he is 
doing. It is the necessary base to everything. 

With religious life came contact with persons and organizations 
in a position to administer to the social needs of the men through 
canteens, recreation-rooms, entertainment at private homes, and 
so on. To round it all off, the recreation of the physical side, or, 
in other words, the athletic, was encouraged. These three things 
helped to develop the rounded-out soldier character necessary to 
the esprit de corps. 

And since it was largely through the religious channel that most 



292 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

of the other things came to the regiment, the rehgious Ufe of the 
regiment must first be considered. 

In the beginning, at the time of the organization's entry into 
the field there was no chaplain. The regiment, strung along 
one hundred miles of line in isolated groups, must look to the 
towns near by for the religious side of its existence, and it was for 
this reason that Colonel Rose, in the first few days of the regi- 
ment's history, instructed all commanding officers to see to it 
that their men had opportunity to attend services either at their 
camps or in the near-by towns. Weekly reports were required. 

At some commands one method was used and at others the 
other. Both the Olive Bridge and Atwood posts of Sector N-i 
had services of Roman Catholic and Protestant denominations at 
their barracks, or in fair weather in the open. Other commands 
sent their men to church in detachments at near-by towns. 

The first military mass said in the field was at the Harlem 
siphon north of Valhalla on the 26th of August, when the priest 
then in charge of the Thornwood Roman Catholic parish said 
mass for the men of the two outposts located then on either side 
of the siphon. This mass was arranged for by Sergeant Brandyce 
of the 9th C. A. C. 

On Headquarters Hill at Croton Lake, Rev. H. R. Silk, of the 
Episcopal Church at Granite Springs, began holding Sunday 
morning services shortly after the entry of the regiment into the 
field. Services were at first in the Commanding Officer's quarters, 
the tent being used as a chancel, while the little congregation sat 
under the fly in front. A combined lectern and litany desk, made 
by Sergt. Melville Johnson, of the Headquarters Company, was 
used, and Dr. Silk supplied the prayer-books and hymnals for 
the services. At first there was no music. A volunteer choir 
made up of civilians from the Croton Lake chapel, and the men 
of the Headquarters Company carried the melodies for the famihar 
old hymns that were used throughout. Later the services were 
held in the officers' mess-hall, this continuing until the removal 
of Dr. Silk from the Granite Springs parish left headquarters 
without a chaplain. 

During the latter portion of Dr. Silk's work at headquarters 
an eflPort was made to secure a volunteer choir each Sunday from 
Ossining. Through the co-operation of George F. Hyatt and Mrs. 
H. D. Brandreth this was made possible, and a field melodeon 
was also furnished by the Ossining people. 

Oct. 28th, 1917, was, in response to President Wilson's proc- 
lamation for a day of prayer, observed along the entire line 
by special services. At Regimental Headquarters, Dr. Silk held 



MORALE 293 

services with special patriotic program, and spoke on the bring- 
ing of peace through the armies of righteousness. At Millwood 
mass was said in the morning and a Protestant service was held 
in the afternoon. Members of Captain Johnson's command 
marched to the Presbyterian Church at Cold Spring, where a 
portion of the church had been reserved for them, and where 
Captain Johnson conducted the service. 

Winter conditions made the continuation of rehgious services 
more and more difficult as the drifts piled up through December 
and January. At Regimental Headquarters during this period, 
Colonel Rose conducted services on several occasions with in- 
spiring messages to the officers and men attached to the post, 
Including his famous acid-test sermon. During his absence ser- 
vices were taken in turn by Major Hodges and the Adjutant in 
the men's mess-hall. 

This In a general way gives the condition of the organization 
with regard to its religious activities prior to the advent of Rev. 
Charles W. Baldwin, rector of St. Mary's Church, Scarborough. 
He was commissioned chaplain of the ist Infantry in May, and 
from that time until demobilization, was, under the direction of 
the Commanding Officer, responsible for more good things for 
the men of the regiment than any other one person. Preaching 
the gospel of cheerful right living in terse, convincing talks at 
his services, he bent every effort and used every available con- 
tact to the betterment of the men of the regiment. It was through 
the efforts of Captain Baldwin that the Y. M. C. A. and the Red 
Cross became deeply Interested in the regiment; it was through 
him, as point of contact, that the Aqueduct Citizens' Committee 
of One Hundred was organized; It was through him that the 
Holbrook Military Academy property was turned over to the 
regiment during the epidemic of Spanish influenza in the late 
fall, and It was through his efforts with the Citizens' Committee 
and the other organizations interested in the men of the Aqueduct, 
that comforts, games, cigarettes, motion pictures, entertain- 
ments, shower-baths, and many other things were made possible 
for the enlisted men. The work of Captain Baldwin for and with 
the First Provisional Regiment cannot be overestimated. 

His personality found instant favor with the enlisted men. 
From the first day of his service he lived up to Colonel Rose's 
description of him as a "fighting parson." He was never shocked 
by the crudities of those with whom he had to deal, and he had 
a real man's appreciation for the temptations and the difficulties 
of the men. He was an advocate of hard-hitting, four-square, 
red-blooded goodness, and had little use for the namby-pamby 



294 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

type of sanctity. His common-sense, every-day type of religion 
appealed to the men on the line, and following his period of 
training at the chaplains' school in Camp Zachary Taylor, he 
returned to the line with valuable technique in addition to his 
innate ability to get and hold men. What he did in helping the 
men of the regiment in a social way will be told later. A few 
glimpses of his religious work will serve to round out the picture 
of the religious life of the First Provisional. 

At 4.30 o'clock on the afternoon of Sunday, May 19, 1918, the 
new volunteer chaplain held his first services on Headquarters 
Hill. It was characteristic of the man and his work that his first 
service was held from the boxing-ring between the two mess- 
halls, where many of the bloody encounters of the regimental 
pugilists had taken place. 

With Sergt. Mylert Mclntyre at the piano, placed in one corner 
of the ring, and the congregation of soldiers and visiting civilians 
ranged on chairs and benches along the side-hill. Captain Baldwin 
was introduced by Lieut. -Colonel Burnett and with a few pre- 
fatory remarks by the chaplain the unique service began. Captain 
Baldwin, in his opening talk, made it apparent that he believed 
actions rather than creed determined a man's status with relation 
to right or wrong. *'Live up to what you say you believe," was 
the only thing ever demanded by him. 

His first text was also characteristic. "Be strong; give unto 
every one his just dues and do good to all men." And in fifteen 
minutes he had driven home the truths of his text to his congre- 
gation. 

He made a rule of half-hour services with ten- or fifteen-minute 
talks, generally the former. In the first week of his service with 
the regiment he visited forty camps on the First Provisional's line 
and distributed over six hundred books donated by his friends, 
together with musical instruments, games, smoking tobacco and 
cigarettes. Thereafter, until his departure to Camp Zachary 
Taylor, late in July, he held services at Regimental Headquarters 
each Sunday, visited from ten to thirty camps along the entire 
length of the line weekly, and through the co-operation of the 
Episcopal Church Periodical Club distributed books and games. 

It was the attitude of the chaplain toward his work that made 
him such an invaluable asset to the regiment. As an instance 
of this: 

It was one Sunday afternoon during service on Headquarters 
Hill. Because of the heat of the sun, the library or recreation 
tent, a big platformed storage, was used as the chancel and the 
congregation sat before it in the shade. One of those sudden 



MORALE 295 

summer rains came up, with the sky getting gradually darker and 
darker, until the first sprinkles began to dampen the congregation 
a bit. The chaplain, being under the tent, did not notice the 
rain, and was proceeding, engrossed in his talk, until at a point 
in it where the word "water" occurred he threw out his hand in 
a gesture which brought it outside the tent, and as he did so a 
drop of water struck it. 

With a hand still outstretched, he paused and smiled. "I 
guess it is water," he remarked. "The congregation had better 
come inside." And the service was finished with the minister in 
the center of a tightly squeezed group. 

The chaplain returned to duty with the regiment on Aug. loth, 
after his period of service at the chaplains' school in Camp Zachary 
Taylor, Kentucky. He continued his work with even better 
success from that time on, and during the training-school period 
at Regimental Headquarters gave several addresses before the 
men brought from the various units of the line for special instruc- 
tion. 

On Sept. 29th, Supply Company trucks, sector cars, and aux- 
iliary motor service brought from every unit of the regiment on 
the east side of the Hudson River details to the stated regimental 
service held at St. Mary's Church, Scarborough, as a tribute 
from the men of the regiment to Captain Baldwin. 

It was a beautiful bright Sunday morning and the men of the 
various companies, clad in their Sunday best, made a splendid 
appearance. As each company arrived, it was formed along the 
side of the Albany Post Road facing the church, and at 11 o'clock, 
while the church bells rang a final call to worship, Sergt. Bugler 
Corrie and the headquarters field-music sounded church call. 
This was immediately followed by assembly, and then, headed 
by the field-music, the staflF, non-commissioned staff, Headquarters 
Company, Supply Company and the company details of the two 
battalions marched up through the church grounds to the church 
itself. At the entrance the field-music swung out of line and played 
the remainder of the column into the church, where the organist 
took up the processional. 

With the entire church filled with soldiers, it was impossible 
to seat the civilian congregation and all of the detachments of 
the National League for Women's Service, the Motor Corps of 
America and the Red Cross Motor Corps who marched in the 
column. Many found seats in the cloister, and others sat on 
chairs outside the doors of the church. 

The regular Episcopal service with modifications was used, 
and the chaplain gave to the men of the First Provisional Regi- 



296 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

ment that morning the message of the gospel of self-sacrifice. He 
spoke of the work in which they were engaged, the lack of glory 
and fame which was so certainly a part of it, of the necessity and 
vital importance of the work, and called upon his hearers to 
sacrifice glory and the plaudits of men in the spirit of self-sacrifice 
which makes life worth while. It was at the time of the regiment's 
biggest losses to the Federal ranks, and it meant much in stem- 
ming the tide of the constant exodus. 

That service came at the most opportune time in the regiment's 
history, for it was at the beginning of the influenza epidemic 
that tried the hearts and souls of the men of the line. Its effects 
were far-reaching in the dark days that followed when the 
message the chaplain had given his boys reached along the 
Aqueduct. 

And during the epidemic, while the men were in quarantine, 
the efforts of Captain Baldwin were tireless and unremitting. 
To keep up the spirit of the men he journeyed back and forth 
on the line with his motion-picture machine, sleeping in the in- 
fected camps, and between Sept. 30th and Oct. 30th gave sixteen 
addresses and twenty motion-picture shows. The big task was 
to get the minds of the men off the epidemic, inspire them with 
courage and avert the panic that might easily have come in those 
camps which seemed especially cursed by the scourge. 

In the field hospitals at Newburgh and Ossining, beside the beds 
of the sick and the dying, the chaplain worked without rest and 
without regard to his own physical condition. At the end of the 
first surge of the epidemic he passed through a physical collapse 
which left him weak, but with the recurrence of the epidemic he 
was back to the bedsides again and continued without break until 
the end. 

He inculcated into the regiment the spirit of true religion 
and good living. As a member of the staff at Regimental Head- 
quarters, where he was constantly stationed after his assignment 
to duty with pay on Nov. ist, he was one of the most popular of 
the officers, and his books, his good humor, and his tireless energy 
made life at headquarters the happier for his presence. 

Nor did he hesitate at the boundary-lines of his spiritual duties 
and his social obligations with the regiment. He participated in 
the ceremonies at headquarters, taking his place as officer of the 
day or officer of the guard at guard mount, and enjoying the 
secular side of the work hugely. As a man, a chaplain and an 
officer he was one of the biggest single assets of the First Provisional 
Regiment and embodied the principles of the religious phase of its 
existence. 



MORALE 297 

PART II 

Recreational 

I SOCIAL 

Diogenes once said — no, it wasn't Diogenes at all. Diogenes 
is the man who went around with a barn lantern when the 
city of Athens wouldn't furnish him with electric lights — it was 
Aristotle. Aristotle once said in a few thousand pages of Greek 
that happiness and goodness were interchangeable, or words to 
that effect. That is the text of what is to follow. Good soldiers 
are happy soldiers, and vice versa. Consider the First Provisional. 

From the time of its entry into the field until the formation 
of the Aqueduct Citizens' Committee in July, the social side of 
the regiment's recreational activities was for the greater part un- 
organized. In the great rush attendant upon the providing of 
recreation for the vast numbers of men pouring into the national 
army cantonments or going overseas to France, the national 
organizations specializing in this work overlooked the thin line 
of the First Provisional for the time being, with the exception 
of such work as was done by local chapters or branches. So, in the 
consideration of the early recreational history of the regiment, 
it must be borne in mind that it was meager enough and in many 
cases only spasmodic. 

The word *' social" when used in this connection includes the 
canteen work, entertainment of men by organizations or private 
individuals, and the ministering to the fundamental wants of the 
soldier, which are for something to eat, something to smoke, a 
place to go, and music. He needs the tidbits that do not com- 
prise a part of the component ration — cakes, pies, doughnuts, 
ice-cream, dainty wafers, ginger pop, and the other soft drinks. 
He is constantly out of smoking materials, and before pay-day 
is quite likely to be without the wherewithal that makes them 
possible. He likes a change of indoor scenery and the companion- 
ship of women, and if he is not given the proper setting and the 
right kind of women, he will find an improper setting and the 
wrong kind. 

He enjoys entertainment of all sorts, and is contented with the 
better sort if it is given to him, but will get some sort in any event. 
He expresses himself in song, and will have a perfectly hilarious 



298 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

evening with his mates in a tent, singing all the printables and 
unprintables known to the game, but, more than that, enjoys 
real music and a chance to participate in it. To give a concert to 
a camp where the soldier has no part is a mistake. To give one 
where the soldier has a chance to be a big part is a success. 

The people of the various communities along the line of the 
First Provisional Regiment who did so much for the men of the 
camps in the early days had all this to learn, and often by more 
or less humiliating experience. Your soldier will never complain 
about the sort of entertainment he gets at hostess house or can- 
teen. He just stops coming, and as a result is the hardest kind 
to "get". 

Without naming any names, there is an instance that proves 
this point exactly. In a certain small town on the line of the First 
Provisional was a dear lady who wanted to do something to help 
the boys. With the best of intentions and motives she invited 
some dozen of them to tea at her house one afternoon. This, 
in her mind, was a "nice way of entertaining them." It was. 
They balanced teacups on their knees in embarrassed agony; 
said "Yes, 'm," and "No, 'm," in scarlet-faced interludes, or 
growled monosyllables at one another; did not dare ask to smoke; 
sweated profusely, and were stiff, uncomfortable and forlorn until 
it was time to go. The only real excitement they had that after- 
noon was a crap game with the dear lady's chauffeur on the way 
home. They "cleaned him out," too. Did they visit that house 
again.? They did not. They could not be induced to it with a 
block and tackle. To be talked at by a "bunch of ladies," to 
drink tea, and to be hot and uncomfortable all about nothing, 
was not their idea of a good time. 

On the other hand, there was the method employed by Mrs. 
Roberts Walker, of Scarsdale, whose home is one of the best- 
appointed of Westchester County's country-places. As a member 
of the National League for Woman's Service she had met the boys 
on the line while she was in uniform. There was one point of 
contact. 

They wanted baths. She knew that and invited them to use 
her bath-tubs. Now ninety per cent, of the soldiers of the First 
Provisional would face nearly anything to get a bath, and when 
they found that at Mrs. Walker's they were merely told where the 
bath-rooms were, without any great amount of conversation 
about the men and their needs entering into the matter, they were 
not shy about taking advantage of her offer. When they came 
down from the bath-rooms they found that there was something 
to eat, all set out on a table where a fellow could help himself 




upper left — Colonel Rose and Lieut.-Col. Burnett emerging from St^ 
Mary's Church on the day of the regimental service. Right — The 
chaplain, Capt. Charles Baldwin, one of the biggest assets of the First 
Provisional Regiment. Center left — A Sunday afternoon service at head- 
quarters with the boxing-ring serving as chancel. Right — The Staff 
marching in to regimental service. Lower left — The "Fighting Parson" 
in his fighting clothes. Right — Thompson, Corey, and Hanlon leading, 
church march. 




ivirs lames opcyci. Mother of the Regimer.t" and orginator of the 
Aqueduct Gt.zens' Comm.tt.e, wh>ch d.d so n>ach for the men of the 
Pirst Provisional. 



Mrs. James Speyer, 



MORALE 299 

and no one watching him. There were cigars, cigarettes, and to- 
bacco in the living-room; and, yes, they could play the piano if 
they chose. Mrs. Walker did not bother them, but if they did 
not know how to play the piano she would be glad to play for 
them. She played. That was another point of contact. 

And they appreciated all this so much that when she invited 
three or four of them to come to dinner they did it just to please 
her. They took one helping of things, cleaned up plates while 
she talked about things in general, and then refused a second 
helping. "No, their appetites were not very good." She laughed 
and helped them again all around and then a third time. She 
did not give them a many-course meal, but there was plenty of 
what there was and it was awfully good. Mrs. Walker had the 
right method. The men came to her house often, going up-stairs 
to their baths, descending after the baths for a smoke, and finally 
going their ways. And in all the time that she entertained she 
never found that her confidence in the men was mistaken. On 
the line a man might be the "toughest guy in camp," but at Mrs. 
Walker's he was a gentleman. 

The same was true of Mrs. H. M. Turner, of Chappaqua, who, 
with Mrs. William Mills of the same village, acted as guardian 
angel to the Camp Fisher and Camp Dyer posts of Company A's 
line. Both were habitually in the uniform of the Motor Corps 
of the National League. Their work on the line made them con- 
versant with, and appreciative of, the problems of guard duty 
and subsistence. They could talk with the men on those things 
in a fashion that showed they knew what they were talking about. 
When they went to the barracks on transportation work there 
was always an exchange of comment on general conditions. When 
the boys visited their homes they did it gladly, for they were 
seeing friends who knew the line and the men of the line. They 
were comfortable with such. 

Perhaps the most substantial advance made in the recreational 
work for the men in the early days was through the plan of 
canteen afternoon or evenings at the barracks where the men were 
quartered. In their own surroundings, with a Victrola or a piano, 
ice-cream, cake, soft drinks and plenty to smoke, the men had 
their best times. Red Cross and organizations of a similar nature 
carried on this work. This was a result of the appreciation of the 
women of the chapters in the various towns along the Aqueduct 
that the work was important and that the men who were doing it 
were entitled to the same consideration as men abroad or training 
in the National Army cantonments. Fortunately there were a few 
in each community to spread this gospel and the results were help- 
20 



300 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

ful to the men. In the mountain camps on the 2nd Battalion 
line, however, it was more or less of a struggle to bring the canteen 
dainties to the line, and the men of the 2nd Battalion had to de- 
pend more on the efforts of their officers than did the men in the 
1st and 3rd Battalions. 

Let it not be understood that the officers of the two battalions 
nearer New York were behind those of the 2nd Battalion in caring 
for the recreational wants of their men. Only, in the case of the 
2nd Battalion, such efforts stood out with greater emphasis be- 
cause they were in many instances all that stood between the 
men and social zero. 

Summary Court fines, the interest of friends, and the people at 
home station were used in buying Victrolas, securing pianos and 
making the barracks better places in which to live. A recreational 
room was an absolute necessity at each place, but unfortunately 
there were many camps where the recreation of the men in the 
daytime interfered seriously with the sleeping arrangements of 
the night guard. And this, too, must be regulated. One command- 
ing officer met it one way and another another, according to 
physical properties available and the spirit of his men. 

There were some posts on the line that were made up of such 
notorious hard workers that they had no time to think of amuse- 
ments at their own camps until some time during the winter 
months. There was one such post that started late in the game, 
and this brings up the consideration of a particular reason for 
something besides the daily grind for the man on Aqueduct work. 

In the beginning all of the men were deeply impressed with their 
job. With some of the more serious-minded it was more or less 
of an obsession in the beginning. And the long hours of watch- 
fulness on post, the constant peering into the dark, and the keen, 
nervous tension under which the more imaginative and more 
conscientious of the men worked, left its mark. Man is naturally 
a gregarious animal. Put him on work that separates him from 
his fellow-men for six hours at a stretch once or twice a day, ac- 
cording to the man-power at his outpost, and he is likely to become 
close-mouthed, uncommunicative, and, if he is of a certain type, 
morose and even moody, after a while. And that is bad for the 
soldier be he young or old. 

There was the case of the Mt. Vernon detachment that Lieut. 
Higgs had on Sector N-6. The story comes from him, and is here 
given as an illustration of the point. The men were all hard 
workers and all enthusiastic about the job on which they had been 
placed. The safety of the Aqueduct had been preached into them 
at the time of their original inspection at the armory. It had 



i 



MORALE 301 

been drilled into them by every officer that had been over them. 
It became the first thing in their lives. And little by little the 
long watches on the cut and cover got into their very nervous 
systems. The talk and the laughter at the mess-tables and in the 
barracks at night became less and less loud. That is a bad sign 
in any barracks, and Lieut. Higgs began to look his men over 
carefully as to their mental attitude. 

He found that some of them were getting into the habit of sitting 
by themselves on their cots until bedtime, moody and silent, and 
that others retired to a corner with a book or magazine the mo- 
ment a meal was over, even disregarding pass privileges. 

This, as a direct result of the life they were leading on the 
Aqueduct. They were passing through a transitory stage which, 
if left to pursue its full course, would lead to a reaction. He 
dreaded that reaction, so he proposed a barracks party. The 
proposal met with little enthusiasm, but he pressed it and the 
invitations were sent out. Even then the men were not overly 
anticipatory. The day of the party came and the barracks had 
to be put in the best of shape for the event. No effort was made 
by the men to do anything extra to beautify the place beyond 
the ordinary policing. Lieut. Higgs directed that the barracks 
floors be mopped. The men went at it in a half-hearted way until 
he himself took one of the mops and got busy. Then came the 
matter of decoration and there was no enthusiasm on that score 
until he started it. But the morning after the party, which was 
made a big success by sheer drive and hustle, the men were of a 
new frame of mind. They wanted to know when there was to be 
another one. The entire spirit of the men changed. They had 
something new to talk about. Their work was done in the same 
conscientious fashion, but the mesmerism of the cut and cover 
was broken. They were no longer under the hypnotic and soul- 
deadening influence of routine. 

And so it was that sooner or later there came to every camp on 
the line the things that made for home life in the barracks, for 
fun, and evenings of rollicking song or games. Gambling is one 
of the most prevalent of army sins, but there was comparatively 
little of it on the line of the First Provisional. Perhaps this was 
because the officers set the example or because it was not generally 
looked on with favor by the senior non-commissioned officers, who 
knew of the attitude of headquarters on the subject of "crap" 
and poker. Bunk-drinking is another army sin, but there was 
little of it on the First Provisional's line. The other things, and 
the hard, steady work kept the men's minds too busy for any 
excesses. 



302 H-A-L-TT!— WHA-ZAA? 

Little by little the posts of the line picked up the accessories 
of amusement for their men. The post of Company M, at Pleas- 
antville, was one of the best examples of this, for there the men 
had a pool-table, a piano, Victrola, and practically all of the 
other barracks entertainment paraphernalia. Metamorphosis of 
the post furnished not a little outlet for excess energy and the 
men derived real pleasure in beautifying the grounds and interior 
of the barracks under Captain Muller. 

Canteen work became an established thing at many of the 
posts. Headquarters was furnished with a night of entertainment 
combined with a French class, once a week at the hall on the 
Preston estate near Mt. Kisco, and during the winter the men 
of the Headquarters Company attended dances there. Active 
in the work for headquarters were, Mrs. H. R. Bishop, of Mt. 
Kisco; Mrs. Preston, Mrs. Murray Dodge, Mrs. W. A. Andrews, 
and Mrs. A. E. Tighe. Dances were also held by the companies, 
in which Company H always shone, and at 2nd Battalion Head- 
quarters there were a number of good dances, in which the men 
of Troop B participated. 

These French classes gave the men of headquarters, the Croton 
Dam outpost, Kitchawan and Millwood something new to think 
about and resulted in some funny incidents. None of these was 
any funnier than when the cook of the men's mess at headquarters 
posted the menu for the day in French, after a laborious hunt 
through his text-book for the proper names of the various in- 
gredients. That was at a time when purchases outside the com- 
ponent ration was being frowned upon by the Brigade Quarter- 
master. 

One of the quartermaster-sergeants from Millwood drove up 
with a truck-load of subsistence just before noon and stopped 
to look at the menu which the cook had posted on the mess-hall 
door. He took a long look at the cook's effort and shook his head. 

"I don't see how in hell you fellows get away with all this 
fancy stuflF up here. We don't get it at Millwood," he growled. 
"Who are you going to feed all that corned beef and cabbage in 
there to — the officers?" 

Much interest had been taken in the men of the Company L 
sector by the good people of Scarsdale, White Plains, Gedney 
Farms and vicinity, and during the winter a committee was 
formed to establish a hostess house for the men of the sector in 
particular and all men of the Aqueduct in general. The matter 
was taken up with Colonel Rose by Thomas Simpson, head of the 
committee, and when the Commanding Officer assured his hearty 
sympathy in the project the affair was incorporated, with Mr. 



MORALE 303 

Simpson as president, Charles J. Davis, of White Plains, as secre- 
tary, and Mrs. Thomas Simpson, treasurer. The board of direct- 
ors included Mrs. Simpson, Mrs. Otis Luke, Mrs. Charles J. 
Davis, Michael J. DufFy and Mr. Simpson, all of White Plains, 
with Willard E. Day and Frank J. Cassidy, of the Gedney Farms. 

On the afternoon of Feb. 22nd, while swirling clouds of heavy, 
wet snow swathed the blood-and-white stripes of the flag, and 
innumerable great flakes on the field of blue made its stars myriad, 
Lieut.-Colonel Burnett accepted the Hostess House in the name 
of the men of the regiment, the finest gift that had been made to 
the organization since its entry into the field. While the snow- 
covered men of Troop G and Battery A stood at parade rest, 
Mr. Cassidy made the speech of presentation, just after formal 
retreat. Members of the regimental and battalion staffs and a 
large number of civilians participated in and witnessed the cere- 
mony, which was held in front of the Hostess House on the 
Underbill road near Outpost No. 3 of the Company L line. 

The house had been well fitted by the public-spirited citizens 
who had planned it. A comfortable two-story building with wide 
porches had been refurnished and renovated throughout, with a 
big reception-room, music-room, dining-room, and kitchen on the 
lower floor, and officers' room, card-room, bath-rooms and game- 
rooms on the upper floor. Curtains, rugs, easy-chairs, soft-tinted 
wall-papers and paints made the interior a delightful one, and the 
register of the Hostess House in the months that followed showed 
that the men of the sector appreciated and used it. Approximately 
twentj'^-five men per day visited the Hostess House throughout 
the period of its existence, which was terminated by the de- 
mobilization of the regiment. 

A maid was kept constantly at the house, and various members 
of the house committee took the days of the week in turn. The 
management of the Hostess House proved the ability of such an 
institution to practically run itself, and the appreciation of the 
men more than paid for its establishment and maintenance. 
To the good people who inaugurated it goes the credit for the 
first organized recreational effort on a large scale along the line 
of the regiment. 

Spring found the recreational work going well from Ashokan 
to Hillview, and with the entry of Captain Baldwin into the or- 
ganization's life other things began immediately. If there was 
one thing which the regiment lacked it was bound books. Through 
the efforts of such organizations as the Brearly League of New 
York City, of which Miss Vanetta Glucksmann was the spokesman 
in Aqueduct work, the regiment had been supplied with magazines, 



304 H-A-L-TTI— WHA-ZAA ? 

but the chaplain appreciated the need of books and his first effort 
was to install a library at every company. The Army and Navy 
Book Club of Albany also helped with this. Then came games 
and musical instruments, and in the early summer the Y. M. C. A., 
becoming interested, supplied some of the units with baseball 
equipment, through Field Secretary Ivan P. Flood, who had 
headquarters at White Plains. 

In late June and early July a group of persons who had been 
interested in the work of the men on the Aqueduct individually, 
were brought together through a combination of circumstances 
and the efforts of the chaplain and Mrs. James Speyer, of Scar- 
borough. Mrs. Speyer, who, as the "mother of the regiment," 
was one of the best-loved women known to the men of the line, 
had become interested in the Aqueduct and its guardians at 
Millwood, where she had seen the needs of the men of Company A 
and had helped to meet some of those needs in a very complete 
way. It was her inspiration and her love of the men of the line 
that led to the formation of the great committee that did so much 
for the boys in olive drab. 

This was during Colonel Rose's illness. Captain Baldwin ad- 
vised the acting lieutenant-colonel of what was pending, some time 
before the organization of the committee was actually put under 
way and secured the acting commanding officer's consent to par- 
ticipate in the organization. 

On July loth the following letter was sent to approximately 
one hundred persons in the counties of Westchester, Orange, 
Putnam, Ulster and New York whose names had been suggested 
by the unit commanders of the First Provisional as having shown 
an interest in the men and their welfare: 



Aqueduct Guard Citizens' Committee 

New York, July loth, 1918. 

The undersigned have known for a considerable time 
that the recreational and other needs of the officers and 
men of the so-called "First Provisional Regiment," which 
is guarding the new Aqueduct on both sides of the Hudson 
River, were not being met as they should be. Last month 
Mr. Kenneth D. Widdemer, Organizing Secretary of the 
New York War Camp Community Service, was asked 
to make a special report on this subject, and a copy of this 
report is herewith enclosed. 

The "First Provisional Regiment," of about 1,500 men, 



MORALE 305 

is recruited from the National Guard Regiments of New 
York, and is composed entirely, both as regards officers 
and men, of New Yorkers. The men of this regiment go 
into Federal Service at the rate of over fifty per week, 
90 per cent, of whom are sent abroad as Non-Commis- 
sioned Officers. The Regiment is, therefore, a training- 
camp for the United States forces, in addition to doing 
actual field service on the 95 miles of the Aqueduct. 

The duty of guarding the water supply of New York City 
is, of course, an important one, and the men who volunteer 
to do this work are entitled to have as much done for them, 
both as regards sanitary living conditions and recreation, 
as the men in the larger camps in this country and abroad. 

A number of our patriotic fellow-citizens residing in the 
towns and villages near the Aqueduct have during the past 
year done a good deal for some of these posts. While these 
individual efforts have been much appreciated by officers 
and men, and by the authorities (whose hearty co-opera- 
tion we have every reason to expect), we are of the opinion 
that the problem can be more efficiently and economically 
solved by co-ordinating all efforts and by giving all resi- 
dents of Westchester, Putnam, Orange and Ulster counties 
a chance to do their share for these men, who have felt 
lonely and forgotten, although in one of the most beautiful 
and densely populated sections of our State. 

We are sure that it is only necessary to call the attention 
of our fellow-citizens to existing conditions to enlist their 
active and financial support. We invite you to become a 
member of a Committee of One Hundred Residents of 
Westchester, Putnam, Orange and Ulster counties, to co- 
operate with us in this work. Will you kindly notify 
promptly Mr. Lewis Gouverneur Morris, Yonkers, whether 
you are willing to serve on this Committee. As soon as the 
list is complete a meeting will be called for organization. 

Yours very truly, 

Captain Charles W. Baldwin, St. Mary's 

Rectory, Scarborough. 
Lewis Gouverneur Morris, Yonkers. 
Alton B. Parker, Esopus. 
James Speyer, Scarborough. 
William Church Osborn, Garrison. 
Finley J. Shepard, Irvington. 
Roberts Walker, Scarsdale, 



3o6 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

This met with immediate response, and as a result there was 
held at the home of Stuyvesant Fish, at Garrison-on-the-Hudson, 
on the afternoon of July 20th, a meeting at which the Aqueduct 
Guard Citizens' Committee was formed, with more than one hun- 
dred members. This was preceded by a luncheon at the home of 
Mr» and Mrs. Speyer, at which the staff officers of the regiment 
present met for the first time the Hon. Justice George L. Genung, 
of the Ninth Municipal Court, New York City. Justice Genung 
represented the New York War Camp Community Service, then 
active in the national camps and in New York City. He had at 
that time volunteered to act as field representative of the Citizens' 
Committee with the regiment during the summer, and this offer 
had been accepted. 

The Commander-in-chief of the State forces expressed his ap- 
proval of the project in the following letter: 



State of New York 

Executive Chamber 

Albany 

July 19, 1918. 
Lewis Gouverneur Morris, Esq. 
119 Hudson Terrace, 
Yonkers, New York. 
Dear Mr. Morris: 

Thank you very much for your kind invitation to at- 
tend the first meeting of the Aqueduct Guard Citizens' 
Committee to be held on Saturday afternoon, July twen- 
tieth, at " GlenclyfFe," the home of Mr. Stuyvesant Fish, 
Garrison-on-the-Hudson . 

I regret sincerely my inability to attend this meeting, 
owing to a previous engagement of long standing for that 
date. 

May I avail myself of this opportunity to express my 
hearty approval of the organization of such a committee 
to promote the welfare of the State Troops who are guard- 
ing the watershed and my appreciation of the good work 
your committee has undertaken. 

Cordially yours, 

Charles S. Whitman. 

At the meeting in Mr. Fish's home the committee formally 
organized and settled upon constitution and officers as follows; 



MORALE 307 

Constitution 

Aqueduct Guard Citizens' Committee 

(Adopted at the First General Meeting Held at 
Garrison, N. Y., July 20, 1918.) 



NAME 



The name of the Committee shall be the "Aqueduct 
Guard Citizens' Committee." 



OBJECT AND PURPOSES 

The object and purposes of the Committee shall be to 
provide for the recreation and other needs of the officers 
and men guarding the new Aqueduct. 

The Committee will seek and stimulate the co-operation 
of State and City authorities, and will welcome and try to 
co-ordinate the work of all agencies, whether National or 
Local, and all individual efforts having the same object in 
view. 

The General Committee will meet at the call of the 
Chair, or at a written request of twenty-five members 
addressed to the Secretary. 

The Officers of the Committee shall be a Chairman, 
two Vice-Chairmen, a Secretary, and Treasurer. They shall 
be elected at the first general meeting of the Committee, 
and hold office for one year, or until their successors are 
appointed. 

COMMITTEES 

There shall be an Executive Committee, composed of the 
Officers, the Chairmen of Committees, and two Members- 
at-Large from each of the Counties of Westchester, Put- 
nam, Ulster and Orange. 

The Chairmen of the Committees, and Members-at- 
Large, shall be appointed by the Chair, subject to the 
approval of the General Committee. 

The Executive Committee shall have all the powers of 
the full Committee, but it shall not have the right to incur 
indebtedness in excess of the funds on hand. It shall 
appoint a Director, and other Officers, needed for the 
work. 

Three members will constitute a quorum, and the Com- 
mittee will make its own rules for the conduct of its business. 



3o8 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

In addition to the Executive Committee, and subject to 
it, there shall be the following committees, each to con- 
sist of five or more members to be appointed by the Chair- 
men of the special Committees in consultation with the 
officers of the General Committee, viz. : 

Finance Committee 
Comforts Committee 
Entertainment Committee 
Canteen Committee 
Committee on Transportation 
Committee on Sanitation 



and such other Committees as may seem expedient from 
time to time. 

OFFICERS 

Chairman 
Hon. Alton B. Parker Esopus 

V ice-Chairman 

Mr. Stuyvesant Fish Garrison 

Hon. John G. Van Etten Kingston 

Treasurer 

Mr. James Speyer Scarborough 

(24-26 Pine Street, New York City) 

Secretary 

Mr. David T. Davis Tarrytawn 

(Oflftce, 55 Liberty Street, New York City) 



Memhers-at-Large of the Executive Committee 

Westchester County 

Mr. A. P. Cobb Tarrytowii 

Mr. Roberts Walker Scarsdale 

Putnam County 

Mr. Stuyvesant Fish Garrison 

Mr, A- A. Healy ..,,,.,.,...,.,.... Cold Spring 



MORALE 309 

Ulster County 

Mr. Edward Coykendall Kingston 

Mrs. James O. Winston Saugerties 

Orange County 

Mrs. E. H. Harriman . . Arden 

Hon. B. B. Odell Newburgh 

Chairmen of Committees 

{and ex-Ojfficio Members of Executive Committee) 

Appointed at the General Meeting, July 20, 1918 

Finance Committee 
Mr. Samuel Sloan Garrison 

Comforts Committee 
Mrs. James Speyer Scarborough 

Entertainment Committee 
Mrs. Peter Duryea Scarborough 

Canteen Committee 
Mrs. Caspar Whitney Bronxville 

Committee on Publications 
Mrs. Roberts Walker Scarsdale 

Committee on Transportation 
Mrs. Francis H. Leggett Stone Ridge 

Committee on Sanitation 
Mr. R. E. WilHs Hastings-on-Hudson 

MEMBERS OF COMMITTEES AS CONSTITUTED TO AUGUST 5, I918 

Finance Committee 

Mr. Samuel Sloan, Chairman Garrison 

Mr. John Henry Hammond Mt. Ki^co^ 

Mr. James Speyer Scarborough 

Mr. Felix M. Warburg White Plains 

Mr. Robert S. Brewster Mt. Kisco 

Hon. Martin Vogel Chappaqua 

Mr. Finley J. Shepard Tarrytown 



3 lo H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

Comforts Committee 

Mrs. James Speyer, Chairman Scarborough 

Mr. Scott R. Hayes, Vice-Chairman. .Croton Lake 

Mrs. J. Clifton Edgar Greenwich 

Mrs. I. N. Spiegelberg Briarcliff 

Mr. De Witt Millhauser , Hartsdale 

Mrs. Edwin Gould Dobbs Ferry 

Mrs. Heber R. Bishop Mt. Kisco 

Mrs. Hiram Bloomingdale Ossining 

Miss Mary Haldane Kingston 

Mr. F. 0. March Philipse Manor 

Mr. Frederick M. Hilton BriarclifF 

Mrs. J. F. D. Lanier Ardsley 

Mrs. Dwight S. Richardson BriarclifF Lodge 

Mrs. Lewis G. Morris Yonkers 

Miss Elsie Janis Philipse Manor 

Entertainment Committee 

Mrs. Peter Duryea, Chairman Scarborough 

Mr. Irvin S. Cobb, Vice-Chairman . . .Ossining 

Captain Charles Baldwin Scarborough 

Mrs. James Speyer Scarborough 

Mrs. D. H. Davison New York City 

Mrs. Harold Turner Chappaqua 

Mrs. Frank Higginson Kingston 

Mrs. George Haliday Walkill 

Mrs. Ralph Waldo Trim Croton 

Canteen Committee 

Mrs. Caspar Whitney, Chairman Bronxville 

Mrs. John C. Ten Eyck Yonkers 

Mrs. Roberts Walker Scarsdale 

Mrs. V. Everit Macy Scarborough 

Mrs. F. R. Winne Newburgh 

Committee on Publications 

Mrs. Roberts Walker, Chairman Scarsdale 

Mr. R. E. Willis Hastings-on-Hudson 

Mrs. William U. Parsons Dobbs Ferry 

Mrs. John R. Hall Scarsdale 

Mr. A. Winne Pulitzer Bldg., N. Y. 



MORALE 311 

Committee on Transportation 

Mrs. Francis H. Leggett, Chairman.. .Stone Ridge 
Mr. Stuyvesant Fish, Vice-Chairman .Garrison 

Mr. Edward Coykendall Kingston 

Mr. T. Horton Kingston 

Mr. J. D. Schoonmaker Kingston 

Mrs. B. B. Odell Newburgh 

Mrs. V. Everit Macy Scarborough 

Miss Mary Haldane Kingston 

Mrs. A. M. Hall Esopus 

Hon. Justice George L. Genung Croton Lake 

Committee on Sanitation 

Mr. R. E. Willis, Chairman Hastings-on-Hudson 

Mr. R. H. Shreve, Vice-Chairman. . . .Hastings 

Dr. L. W. Hubbard Mt. Vernon 

Mr. F. M. McCoy PeekskiU 

Mr. Justice Seeger Newburgh 

Mr. Bruyam Hasbrouck New Paltz 



DIRECTOR OF THE WORK 



Hon. George L. Genung Croton Lake 

(Headquarters, First Provisional Regiment) 



LIST OF GENERAL COMMITTEE TO AUGUST 5, I918 

Arnstein, Leo Dobbs Ferry 

Barnum, Dr. and Mrs. M. W Ossining 

Bloomingdale, Mr. and Mrs. Hiram . .Ossining 

Benet, Mr. and Mrs. Imlay Lake Mahopac 

Breuchard, Mr. and Mrs. Jules Olive Bridge 

Baldwin, Captain and Mrs. Charles W.St. Mary's Rectory, 

Scarborough 

Bailey, Mrs. J. Muhlenberg Yonkers 

Brown, Hon. and Mrs. C. F Newburgh 

Bishop, Mr. and Mrs. Heber Reginald .Mt. Kisco 

Brewster, Mr. and Mrs. Robert S Mt. Kisco 

Clearwater, Hon. A. T Kingston 

Cobb, Mr. and Mrs. Irvin S Ossining 

Cobb, Mr. and Mrs. A. P Tarrytown 



:i2 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

Coykendall, Mr. and Mrs. Edward . . . Kingston 

Duryea, Mr. and Mrs. Peter Scarborough 

Dunham, Dr. and Mrs. Carroll Irvington 

Danforth, Mr. and Mrs. C. E Sleepy Hollow 

Country Club 

Dayton, Miss Laura Highland 

Davis, Mr. and Mrs. David T Tarrytown 

Delafield, Mr. and Mrs. E. C Riverdale 

Edgar, Dr. and Mrs. J. Clifton Greenwich 

Ettlinger, Mr. and Mrs. Louis Peekskill 

Fish, Mr. Stuyvesant Garrison 

French, Mrs. Lydia C. Garrison 

Guinzburg, Mrs. Victor Chappaqua 

Gould, Mr. and Mrs. Edwin Dobbs Ferry 

Hasbrouck, Hon. and Mrs. G. D. B.. .Kingston 

Hays, Mr. and Mrs. Daniel P Pleasantville 

Haas, Mr. and Mrs. Kalman Mt. Kisco 

Hammond, Mr. and Mrs. John Henry .Mt. Kisco 

Hayes, Mr. and Mrs. Scott R Croton Lake 

Hall, Mr. and Mrs. John R Scarsdale 

Haldane, Miss Mary Kingston 

Higginson, Admiral and Mrs Kingston 

Hilton, Mrs. George P Saugerties 

Harriman, Mrs. E. H Arden 

Healy, Mr. and Mrs. A. A Cold Spring 

Hitch, Mrs. Fred Delano Newburgh 

Hoysradt, Mr. and Mrs. Warren J. . . . Bronxville 
Hilton, Mr. and Mrs. Frederick M.. . . BriarclifF 

Hoe, Mrs. Robert Bedford Hills 

Hall, Mrs. Charles Mercer Esopus 

Kelley, Mr. and Mrs. Hennan A Kingston 

Kunz, Mr. George F Peekskill Hollow 

Law, Mr. and Mrs. Walker W Briarcliff 

Lord, Mr. and Mrs. Charles E Tarrytown 

Lanier, Mr. and Mrs. J. F. D Ardsley 

Lewisohn, Mr. Adolph Ardsley 

Leggett, Mrs. Francis H Stone Ridge 

Macy, Mr. and Mrs. V. Everit Scarborough 

Millhauser, Mr. and Mrs. De Witt . . .Hartsdale 
Morris, Mr. and Mrs. Lewis Gouverneur. Yonkers 
Metz, Lieut.-Col. and Mrs. Herman A..Mamaroneck 

March, Mr. F. O PhiHpse Manor 

Norwood, Dr. and Mrs. E. E Kingston 

Osborn, Mr. and Mrs. William Church.Garrison 



1 



MORALE 313 

Olcott, Mr. and Mrs. J. Van Vechten .Garrison 

Odell, Hon. and Mrs. B. B Newburgh 

Pugsley, Hon. and Mrs. Cornelius A. .Peekskill 
Parsons, Mr. and Mrs. William Usher. . Garrison 

Parker, Hon. Alton B Esopus 

Redmond, Mrs. Henry S Portchester 

Richardson, Mrs. Dwight S BriarclifF Lodge 

Roberts, Miss Grace Highland 

Sloan, Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Garrison 

Spiegelberg, Mr. and Mrs. L N Briarcliff 

Speyer, Mr. and Mrs. James Scarborough 

Sharpe, Hon. Sevryn B Kingston 

Shepard, Mr. and Mrs. Finley J Tarrytown 

Stelle, Mr. and Mrs. Frederick W Ossining 

Stroock, Mr. and Mrs. Joseph C Newburgh 

Smiley, Mr. and Mrs. Daniel Lake Mohonk 

Turner, Mr. and Mrs. Harold Chappaqua 

Vogel, Hon. and Mrs. Martin Chappaqua 

VanderHp, Mr. and Mrs. Frank A. . . .Scarborough 

Villard, Mr. and Mrs. Oswald G Dobbs Ferry 

Van Etten, Hon. and Mrs. John G.. . . Kingston 

Walker, Mr. and Mrs. Roberts Scarsdale 

Warburg, Mr. and Mrs. Felix M White Plains 

WilHs, Mr. and Mrs. R. E Hastings-on-Hudson 

Webb, Captain and Mrs. Vanderbilt. .Peekskill 

Wiborg, Mr. B Easthampton, L. L 

Whitehouse, Mr. Worthington White Plains 

Winne, Mrs. F. R Newburgh 

Ziegfeld, Mr. and Mrs. F Hastings 

A budget totaling approximately $12,000 had been made up 
by the Executive Committee. At the first meeting in Garrison 
over $7,000 was raised immediately by subscription, and the 
Committee entered upon its work with Justice Genung as field 
director. A committee badge, the medal of which was made up 
of the Great Aqueduct Seal, was adopted. 

An indication of the scope of the Committee's efforts is con- 
tained in the following copy of the resolution adopted at a meeting 
of the Executive Committee held on the i6th of August: 

COPY OF RESOLUTION 

Adopted at Meeting of Executive Committee of Aqueduct 
Guard Citizens' Committee on August i6th, 19 18. 



314 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

Until further resolution of the Executive Committee of 
the Aqueduct Guard Citizens' Committee the following 
Committees and the Treasurer shall have respectively the 
following functions and duties: 



I. Finance Committee 

The Finance Committee shall make a budget and see to 
it that the funds of the Aqueduct Guard Citizens* Com- 
mittee are allocated to the several Committees in an equa- 
ble manner so as to meet the most pressing needs for 
health, sanitation, transportation, canteen, entertainment, 
etc. 

The Chairman of each Committee shall submit to the 
Finance Committee for approval a detailed estimate of 
the funds required for the six months ensuing from the date 
of such submission. 

No debt shall be incurred by any officer or by any Com- 
mittee without the previous approval of the Finance Com- 
mittee. 

2. Comforts Committee 

The Comforts Committee will provide without charge 
comforts for the men. It will collect articles needed, such 
as sweaters, mittens, helmets, books, periodicals, Victrolas, 
records, boxing-gloves, baseballs, cards, musical instru- 
ments, etc. Only such articles may be purchased as cannot 
be obtained through gift. 

Requisitions for money to purchase articles are to be 
made by the Chairman or Vice-Chairman to the Finance 
Committee, and upon its approval the articles may be pur- 
chased and the Treasurer will pay the bills. ~ 

It is important that comforts be distributed impartially 
among the different posts and naturally where most needed. 

5. Entertainment Committee 

The Entertainment Committee shall have the charge and 
management of all entertainments, to be given impartially 
at the various posts. No fees are to be paid to entertainers, 
but their expenses are to be paid from the Committee 
funds at the request of and if approved by the Chairman 
of the Entertainment Committee. It shall be the duty of 
this Committee to arrange games and sports. 




Left column, top to bottom — A mill at headquarters: Bauer and Keegan; 
Units of the First Provisional participate in the 191 8 Fe e de Mai of the 
Sleepy Hollow Country Club; Captain Westcott and the directors of the 
Hostess House; D plays A at Millwood. Right column, top to bottom — 
Bill Becker, heavyweight champion of the First Provisional; The Hostess 
House on the Underbill Road, near Scarsdale; A boxing bout in the shadow 
of Bonticou Crag by Troop B men; Captain Lord and the regimental non- 
com, staff on the football field at Ossining headquarters. 




[Mrs. Peter Duryea (Viola Allen), Who Meant Much to 
THE Regiment [in Its Brief Playtimes 



MORALE 315 

4. Canteen Committee 

The Canteen Committee shall have the charge and man- 
agement of all canteens, whether stationary or traveling. 
The canteens shall be stocked and have for sale useful 
articles which the men need and can afford to buy. No 
articles are to be given away free. All articles are to be 
sold for cash at a price of 10 per cent, above cost. 

The Finance Committee will furnish funds to stock the 
canteens and will appoint a Purchasing Agent to do the pur- 
chasing, which is to be done by wholesale wherever possible. 

Strict and exact accounts are to be kept of all purchases 
and the bills therefor are to be paid by the Treasurer on the 
O. K. of the Purchasing Agent and Chairman of the Finance 
Committee. A strict and exact account is also to be kept 
of all sales. 

Each soldier is to sign a book kept by the Canteen 
Manager, stating the article and amount paid by him. Once 
a week the amount of cash taken in by the canteen during 
the preceding week is to be turned in to the Treasurer, to- 
gether with the books showing the sales made during the 
said week. 

All requisitions for articles desired by the canteen to re- 
plenish stock are to be made in writing and turned in to the 
Purchasing Agent. The Finance Committee may pay 
some one to check up and make an inventory at any time 
of stores on hand in canteen. 

No other Committee shall make sales to soldiers. 

5. Committee on Transportation 

The Committee on Transportation shall arrange for the 
transportation of necessary material and supplies to vari- 
ous posts of the articles furnished by the Comforts Com- 
mittee and for entertainments. It shall also arrange trans- 
portation for the men to entertainments and to near-by 
towns and villages. 

The Committee shall incur no expense without the ap- 
proval of the Finance Committee, and expenses incurred 
with such approval shall be paid for by the Treasurer. 

6. Committee on Sanitation 

It shall be the duty of the Committee on Sanitation to 
take all measures necessary and to co-operate with the 
21 



3 16 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

authorities so that all such measures as may be necessary 
for the health and physical welfare of the men shall properly 
be taken by them. 

Baths (hot and cold), fly-screens, disinfectants, medical 
and hospital service, first-aid kits and other necessities shall 
be arranged for by said Committee. 

The Treasurer 

The Treasurer shall have charge of all the funds of the 
Committee and shall pay such bills as have been approved 
in writing by the Chairman of the Finance Committee. 

Mrs. Peter Duryea, known and worshiped by the theater- 
going public as Viola Allen, was a member of Captain Baldwin's 
church in Scarborough and as such became interested in the 
Aqueduct and its men. And it was due to the eflForts of Viola 
Allen that arrangements were made with the Stage Women's 
War Relief early in July for a series of performances by profes- 
sionals at the camps on the line. The regiment was divided into 
three zones and the schedule of performances planned accordingly. 
The first was given at Camp Pell, Millwood, on the night of 
June 29th, 1918, when men from Companies D, B, and M, and the 
headquarters men, enjoyed, with a crowd of civilians, and the 
men of Company A, a splendid program of vaudeville numbers. 
The men of the command had erected a stage in the natural 
amphitheater made by the triangle of the Croton Lake and Chap- 
paqua roads and the Aqueduct. It was a wonderful night for the 
affair, and with the camp and stage brilliantly lighted by hundreds 
of incandescents and colored Japanese lanterns that first perform- 
ance made a memory picture that will remain long with those who 
saw it. 

At a subsequent performance at headquarters the regiment came 
into touch for the first time with the famous Mother Davidson, 
who did so much for the men of the national cantonments during 
the war. Energetic, enthusiastic and active. Mother Davidson 
heard of the work that was being done on the Aqueduct by the 
Stage Women's War Relief and began to make inquiries. At 
the headquarters performance on July 6th, which began in a 
beautiful setting of flowers, ferns, footlights and soft-colored 
electrics, and concluded in the officers' mess-hall to the accompani- 
ment of a terrific thunderstorm, she made up her mind that the 
boys of the Aqueduct needed her. There followed in the deserted, 
wet mess-hall after the entertainment a conference with the chap- 



MORALE 317 

lain, the Adjutant, and Mrs. Duryea, and from that time on the 
Mother Davidson players co-operated with the Stage Women's 
War Relief in bringing joy to the men on the Aqueduct. 

This is the only place in the entire volume where there is refer- 
ence to that little stranger within the seams who has received so 
much attention in the public print during the great war. There 
was a certain prisoner of the First Provisional who shall be name- 
less. He was noted for two things. That is, he was noted for 
two things, figuratively speaking. One was his ability to dodge 
work, and the other his ability to attract company. He had lots 
of company. 

Periodically, he was given a kerosene bath, but there were always 
sufficient survivors to hold a meeting of the veteran association. 
The worst of it was that he never seemed to mind them. One day 
the battalion medical officer wanted a cootie for a microscopic 
demonstration. The first sergeant went up into the company 
street where the prisoner was at work. 

"Commere, you,'* he said. "Doc wants a cootie." 

"Well, I don't see what you're taking things away from me for," 
answered the prisoner, in a tone of complaint, as the first sergeant, 
with unerring instinct, turned a seam in the man's shirt-front 
and returned to the medical officer with his prize. 

Imagine, then, the near-riot that ensued when at one of the 
entertainments a sleight-of-hand artist reached over to the prisoner 
in question and seemingly extracted from his shirt-front five 
playing-cards and an imitation mouse. 

"Bane gettin' pritty big, huh?" roared the Scandinavian cook, 
and the crowd yelled. The visitors wondered what the boys 
were laughing at. 

Performances, as shown in the following schedules, were given 
at the various camps from June to November: 

First Entertainment 

June 29th Millwood, N. Y. 

Program by arrangement with the Stage Women's 
War Relief 
Miss Mabelle Adams Violin Solos, Songs and Reci- 
tations 

Miss Brown Accompanist 

Miss Bocock Monologist, Southern Songs 

and Stories on the Banjo 
Mile. Luano {Premiere dan- 

seus'e from the Hippodrome). In Dances 



3i8 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

Second Entertainment 

July 6th Headquarters, Croton Lake 

Program arranged by Mrs. Speyer 

Mr. John Palmer Comedy Monologues 

Miss Carrie Bridewell (Metro- 
politan Opera) Songs and Operatic Selections 

Miss Dorothy Hoyle Violinist 

Mr. Hyler Card tricks and Sleight-of-hand 

Mr. Chichester, Accompanist 

At the first two performances Mrs. H. M. Turner, of Chap- 
paqua, provided transportation for the men, and in subsequent 
entertainments on the east side of the river was largely instru- 
mental in securing transportation for the visiting soldiers. 

The scope of the Entertainment Committee was enlarged to 
cover other recreational needs, and three large stationary open- 
air platforms were constructed at Millwood, Scarsdale, and 
Elmsford. (The lumber was paid for out of the Chaplain's Fund, 
the boys in the camps doing the carpenter work.) 

It was designed to use these platforms for boxing, games, etc., 
at other times, but being expensive to erect and sometimes difficult, 
it was found more practical to have two portable platforms made 
— one at the Peak near Kingston, for use in camps on the 
west side of the river, and the other, made under the direction of 
Captain Roche, at Peekskill, to be transported to whatever points 
entertainments were given on the east side. The performances 
were scheduled with care and every effort made to give each and 
every camp equal opportunity to see them. 

Either the Chairman or the chaplain (generally both) attended 
each performance and saw to it that the platform, piano and other 
accessories were in place; that the artists were met and conveyed 
to and from trains and camp, and refreshments furnished them 
when needed. 

Third Entertainment 

August loth At Scarsdale (Company L) 

Program by arrangement with Mrs. D. H. Davidson, 
Affectionately known in all camps as "Mother Davidson" 
Mme. Yvonne de Treville 

(Grand Opera Singer) Songs and Operatic Selections 

Miss Margaret Sumner (now 

entertaining in France).. . .Recitations 
Miss Fay Foster Composition of *'The Amer- 
icans Come" 



MORALE 319 

Miss Tydeman Songs 

Mrs. Ballentine Stories and Recitations 

Mr. Craig Campbell (Grand 

Opera Singer) Patriotic Songs and Operatic 

Selections 
Little Miriam Baptista and 

Mother Davidson Child Actress 



Fourth Entertainment 

August 17th 
By special request of the boys of Company D at Peeks- 
kill a small unit went from the S. W. W. R. to help in an 
entertainment they themselves arranged. 

Program 

Miss Mabelle Adams, 

Miss Bocock, Specially requested by 

Miss Brown, Corporal J. R. Flanagan. 



Fifth Entertainment 

August 17th Elmsford, N. Y. 

Program by arrangement with Stage Women's War Reliet 

Miss Grace Leigh Songs 

Mr. Bob Russek (Singing Co- 
median) and Accompanist. .Stories and Songs 

Miss Elsa Ziegler Recitations 

Miss Darrow Southern Songs and Dances 

Mr. Tom Lewis (Well-known 

Actor) Comic Stories 

Sixth Entertainment 

August 29th At the Peak 

Program by arrangement with Stage Women's War Relief 
(A Three Days' Trip) 

Miss Mabelle Adams Violin, .Songs and Stories 

Miss Brown Accompanist 

Miss Bocock Songs and Stories 

Miss Marcelle Johnston (Opera 

Singer) Songs 

Mr. Tom Lewis Comic Talks and Stories 



320 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

Seventh Entertainment 

August 30th (Afternoon) Olive Bridge 

Misses Adams, Brown, Bocock and Johnston and Mr. 

Tom Lewis 

Eighth Entertainment 

August 30th (Evening) Camp Gardiner 

Same program as in afternoon 

Transportation by Mrs. Francis H. Leggett 

Ninth Entertainment 

September 6th Peekskill 

Program by arrangement with Mrs. Davidson 

Mr. Henry Davison 'Cellist 

Miss Gwen Lewis Recitations and Songs 

Miss Ives Recitations to Music 

Garda Kora (Interpretative 

Dancer) Greek Dances and Pantomime 

Miss Sara Barnett Comedy Monologue 

Mr. Ferdinand Himmelrich (Pianist and Instantaneous 
Composer) 

— and Mother Da\idson 

Tenth Entertainment 

September 12th New Paltz 

Program by arrangement with Stage Women's War Relief 
Mr. and Mrs. George Spink 

(Well known in Vaudeville) . Songs, Duets, and Mono- 
logues, with- Piano 

Miss Welki Recitations 

Miss Ruth Benton Singer 

Miss Haum Dancer 

Miss Walcott Accompanist 

Eleventh Entertainment 

September 20th . Pleasantville 

(Held in Carnegie Library because of rain) 
Program by arrangement with Mrs. Davidson 
Miss Beverly Sitgreaves 

(Prominent Actress) Dramatic Recitations 

Mr. Bowers Violin Solos 



MORALE 321 

Eleventh Entertainment — Continued 

Miss Schiller Pianist 

Miss Gibson Songs 

Miss Mary Stuart Monologues 

Mr. Niemeyer Comic Stories 

Billy Rhodes Songs at Piano 

— and Mother Davidson 



Twelfth Entertainment 

September 27th Little Britain 

Program by arrangement with Stage Women's War Relief 

Miss Lucile La Jerne Talks and Stories 

Miss Anelon Burns Violin Solos and Songs 

Miss Shepperd Piano and Songs 

Miss Helen Hunt Comic Recitations 

All entertainments for October were canceled because of quar- 
antine for influenza. 

Thirteenth Entertainment 

November 21st At the Peak 

Program by arrangement with Mrs. Davidson 
Mr. Ferdinand Himmelrich . . Piano Selections and Instan- 
taneous Composing 

Miss Raymond Violinist 

Miss Rudd Accompanist 

Miss Kann Songs and Operatic Selections 

Miss Cecile Weston Humorous Songs and Reci- 
tations 
Miss Weston (sister) Accompanist 

Special entertainment, with sketch, etc., arranged for at head- 
quarters at Scarborough for Thanksgiving had to be canceled 
two days before because of fresh cases of influenza in the hospital. 

Co-ordinating all activities for the welfare of the enlisted men, 
the Aqueduct Citizens' Committee gave standing and standard 
to all recreation work of the First Provisional. It brought about 
renewed interest by the Red Cross and Y. M. C. A. and other 
auxiliary branches of welfare work connected with army life. 

And this committee of leading citizens from the Hudson River 
counties proved a big asset to the regiment in another way. Un- 



322 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

hampered by official position, it spoke, and spoke boldly for the 
enlisted men and their welfare to State and city officials. Non- 
partisan in nature and affiliated with powerful leaders in both of 
the big political parties of the State, it was a bulwark and aid 
to the regiment and the maintenance of the Line Impregnable. 

It provided a fund for the chaplain, and, furnishing shower- 
baths and fixtures, made arrangements at the same time to pay 
for the shower-baths in the proposed Red Cross canteens in the 
event of the city's failure to do so. 

A committee on publication was organized which in the final 
days of the regiment's history secured the payment of all of The 
Watchdog bills. The comforts committee, of which Mrs. Speyer 
was chairman, did much toward adding to the happiness of the 
men of the line, and the entertainment committee, of which Mrs. 
Duryea was the chairman, co-ordinated the amusement activities. 

In January, 1919, as the regiment neared the end of its service 
the big general committee disbanded, leaving the disposition of 
the remaining funds of the organization in the hands of a committee 
of four, consisting of Judge Parker, Mr. Speyer, Captain Baldwin, 
and Secretary Davis. 

There remains the work of the Red Cross along purely recrea- 
tional lines, and the work of the Y. M. C. A. 

Much of the individual work of the local Red Cross Chapters 
along the Aqueduct has already been outlined. It was not until 
midsummer of 191 8 that the Atlantic Division of the American 
Red Cross placed an official representative in the field with the 
Aqueduct troops, Capt. C. E. Lindsey, who made a survey of the 
Aqueduct with the idea of canteen buildings at twelve points and 
a traveling canteen truck to visit the outposts at stated intervals. 

Following this survey and conference with the Commanding 
Officer, it was decided to erect eleven of the canteens on the regi- 
ment's line. One was already in existence at the Palmer Avenue 
headquarters of Company K on the outskirts of 'Yonkers, having 
been erected during the service of Captain Johnson's command on 
that sector. Eleven others were to be built in the following loca- 
tions: Headquarters Hill, Company A, at Millwood, B at Peeks- 
kill Hollow road, C at Cold Spring, D at Crompound road, 
E at Atwood, H at the Peak, G at Sherwood Corners, Machine 
Gun Company at Cohecton Turnpike, M at East Pleasantville, 
and L at Fort Hill road. 

The buildings were to be 18 by 40 feet, with a large assembly- 
room in the forward part of the building, and kitchenette with 
sink, shower-baths and toilet in the rear. According to the esti- 
mates made at the time these buildings would cost about ;^i,ooo 



MORALE 323 

apiece. Mr. William Knight, of the American Red Cross, was in 
direct charge of the barracks construction. 

Due to the signing of the armistice, only the canteen buildings 
at Regimental Headquarters and Company M were completed. 
The canteen at Company K had been in use for some time. Had 
the war continued the plans of the Red Cross would have meant 
a great deal of comfort to the men, but at the time the first of the 
canteens was being erected at Regimental Headquarters the in- 
fluenza epidemic was beginning to sweep the line and both the 
regiment and the Red Cross had to turn attention to the life- 
and-death fight almost immediately. 

In July, 1918, Ivan P. Flood, of the Westchester County Y. M. 
C. A., submitted a plan of Y. M. C. A. work for the line of the 
1st and 3rd battalions. This plan was approved and in a measure 
carried out, although there was nothing of a general nature for 
the entire regiment until October, when the chaplain appeared 
before the war council of the Y. M. C. A. in New York and told 
of the Aqueduct and its needs. For the first time in its history 
the National Y. M. C. A. provided a field secretary for State troops, 
and Mr. Hugh Richings reported to the First Provisional during 
November. He lived along the line, making the 2nd Battalion 
headquarters at New Paltz his base and doing excellent work in a 
quiet and unpretending way that made him many friends among 
the men. With motion pictures, books and games Mr. Richings 
did a great deal of good for the regiment, especially among the 
companies in the mountains. 

And so the chapter of human kindness ends. It would be im- 
possible to recount the names of all who did much for the men of 
the Aqueduct, even were all the names available, which they are 
not. But the reports of the chaplain show that to the Church 
War Commission, to the Soldiers' and Sailors' Club at Ossining, 
to the New York Bible Association, the Scarborough School, 
Mr. William Rockefeller, the Church Periodical Club, and to 
many other individuals and organizations the men of the regiment 
owed much in thankfulness. And to all of the named and un- 
named let this stand as the regiment's thanks. 



PART III 

Athletics 

A regiment of six-on, six-ofF proclivities, inclinations and in- 
stincts is not apt to have an amazing amount of surplus steam 



324 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

to expend in running bases, swatting the horsehide or damag- 
ing human maps with hair-padded leather. 

On the other hand, no matter how hard a regiment works its 
men, if they are red-blooded, will run something, swat something 
and damage something in the natural course of events and human 
nature. It is for the public weal that when the runners run they 
run bases; that when the swatters swat they swat horsehide, and 
that when the damagers damage they damage something that is 
not classed as real estate or city property. Some faces may come 
in the former class, but the city takes no chances. 

Organized regimental athletics were not a part of the First 
Provisional's history. There were two near approaches to this 
condition, but geography bobbed up in this as in everything con- 
nected with regimental affairs, and the results were disastrous. 
The first near-regimental sport along organized lines was boxing, 
and it did better than its four-base successor in the matter of 
longevity. Perhaps this was because the regiment operated under 
different conditions in its era of boxing than it did in its short era 
of battalion baseball. But one sport at a time. 

Just how regimental boxing had its start would be a difficult 
matter to exactly fix upon, but it is an even gamble that it re- 
sulted from some remarks made by the once-commander of old 
Depot Battery A, Capt. Leo C. Harte, who brought into the 
field from Syracuse as husky a crowd as ever struck the First 
Provisional's line all at one time. They embraced representatives 
of the famous Syracuse school of pugiHstic art that has one time 
and another developed some good fighters, and it is probable that 
one remark led to another and finally to facts. In any event, 
Oct. 4, 1917, marked the first of the big bouts at Regimental 
Headquarters — the bouts that led to — But this is getting ahead 
of the story. 

The first fights were staged on the platform of what was later 
to be The Watchdog office, over which canvas had been stretched 
tight and around which ropes had been erected. It was a chilly, 
starry evening when the group of officers and men gathered 
around the nitrogen-lit ring where the principals hammered at 
one another in short machine-gun rounds of the first mills. That 
was the night when Dorn of the Supply Company was slashed 
fore and aft by Hoffman, the fighting smiler of Battery A, and 
when little Eddie Doyle, of the Headquarters Company, fell 
victim to the bantam-weighted Luden of the Battery. They were 
both bloody affairs and the only real, nice, calm exhibition of the 
evening was the Dixon-Low sparring match that served as 9 
semi-final to the Hoffman-Dorn mix-up. 



MORALE 325 

The next week's affair was a Twelfthnight, viewed from any 
angle, for that was the night when Fighting Bill Becker, of Com- 
pany A, made his debut as a regimental pugilist and left Bugbee 
of the Headquarters Company a sadder and more swollen man. 
It was also the night when McKee, of the 12th, scrapped Big 
Tully of the 9th Coast for a shade from gong to gong, and although 
Tully had it on his opponent in weight, McKee made it up in 
cleverness, quickness and a great willingness to take punishment. 
Jimmy De Roma, of the Headquarters Company, had it all his 
way with a mite named Caruso from the 9th Coast, and it was on 
this night that Palmer & Harrison, Inc., of the 12th, made their 
first appearance in burlesque boxing that caused the members of 
The Watchdog contest board, in whose honor the bouts were staged, 
to hold their sides with laughter. 

Hoffman held his honors with Dominick Rubino, of the 9th 
Coast, on the following week's card, and Willie Falkner, of the 
1 2th, went to a draw with Brian Riley of the 9th Coast. The 
occasion was the first of the "School Boxing Matches," where 
new men entered the ring, each coached by a semi-professional, 
and learned a lot about the game, while they were affording a large 
measure of entertainment to the spectators. 

This school boxing was the result of a general demand for knowl- 
edge in the art of self-defense that ran through the regiment as 
a result of the bouts at headquarters, and it proved to be a most 
successful and useful innovation. Boxing picked up in all of the 
camps on the eastern side of the river, as more or less garnished 
faces on post would have told the visitor on the lines, but it had 
a good effect and gave the men something to talk about. On the 
line of the 2nd Battalion, Troop B showed the most interest and 
began preparing a challenger to meet Becker, who skated blithely 
along the regimental championship course. 

Pines Bridge Manor, at the foot of Headquarters Hill, had been 
a boxing center in the halcyon days of Jim Coffey, and after the 
weather turned inclement for outdoor boxing the bouts were 
staged in the old ring in the loft of the hotel. Through the efforts 
of Edward J. Kelly, proprietor of the hotel, Billy Gibson promised 
to bring to headquarters for instruction purposes a card including 
Bennie Leonard, Billy Grup, Patsy CHne, Young Russo, Willie 
Meehan, Augie Ratner, and others. A big Y. M. C. A. tent was 
secured from Peekskill and pitched on the flat in front of Pines 
Bridge Manor. All arrangements had been made for the trans- 
portation of honor men from the companies of the regiment to 
headquarters on Oct. 30th for the big card, but the weather man 
spoiled it. The winds rose on the night of the 29th, the rains 



326 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

descended, and the floods came, and that was all there was to it. 
All the plans for entertainment and feeding of the men that had 
been so carefully made were upset by J. Pluvius, who had ap- 
parently upset something else in the bargain. There was no big 
fight. 

After that, boxing dragged along with more or less interest, 
as work piled up and winter added its problems to the already 
large ones of the regiment. But in March there was an intense 
revival of interest, for Fighting Bill Becker, of the I2th, who stood 
as regimental champion, was pitted against Joe Birdsall, of Ossin- 
ing, for honors, with Billy Gibson as referee. The Watchdog an- 
nounced it like this: 

"Our Bill, Bill of the Twelfth, Bill of the Smile and the out- 
thrust jaw; Bill of the * sniff, sniff,' and the sliding footwork; 
Fighting Bill Becker, as the posters say, is going to fight for the 
honor of the regiment at Ossining, Thursday night.'* 

To make it short, Becker was beaten and beaten badly. He 
was out of condition, over-confident, and under reach. Birdsall 
hammered him around considerably and the o. d. went home 
chagrined. At which The Watchdog remarked merrily, under the 
caption, "Song of the Twelfth'*: 

My pay-check is tattered and shattered, 

My pay-check is all on the blink. 
For Bill, he got horribly battered 
And I bet a lot on that Gink. 
Bring back, 
Bring back. 

Oh, bring back that pay-check to me' 

It was the end of organized pugilism in the First Provisional. 
The boxing had served its purpose. It had taught many men how 
to hold up two hands where one had fluttered wildly before; it 
had given amusement to the men of the regiment and bound them 
closer together with a common interest. And that is the larger 
part of the mission of all organized sport. 

It was shortage of man power rather than anything else that 
killed the battalion baseball leagues formed during March and 
started during April, with scheduled games. 

Credit for the organization of regimental baseball goes to Major 
W. L. Hodges, who, about the middle of March, announced a 
schedule for the ist Battalion. April 6th, Company D trimmed 
Company A, 13-7, and B beat C, 15 to-o. Those first two games 
were riotous affairs, especially the opener at the 69th grounds. 



MORALE 327 

where the Company B rooters stirred things up in great shape. 
Major Hodges threw out the first ball at the opening game of the 
league, the D-A game. 

The following week D took the lead in the battalion, defeating 
C in the ninth inning when the score stood 8-5 in favor of the 
men from Cold Spring. The score at the inning's end was 9-8. 
C took revenge on B the same week, and D won from A, leaving 
the 71st men at the top of the heap. In the 3rd Battalion the 
Valhalla men defeated Company I, 13-12. 

Things were going wonderfully, and then — down came the ax. 
From the high and mysterious regions where no private must even 
peep came the dictum. The line was too thin for the number of 
men that had to fly around during ball games. Baseball as an 
organized proposition stopped with a dull, sickening thud. 

As units the companies of the line developed baseball and 
basket-ball teams that played with teams from the near-by cities 
and villages. Company D, for instance, produced a splendid 
basket-ball team, and after the dissolution of the battalion league, 
the Company D baseball team continued to play with teams from 
the vicinity. At Company H headquarters there was always a 
good baseball team and basket-ball team. Company A had a 
soccer team at one time, and the Headquarters Company in the 
fall of 19 1 8 produced a fairly good football team which enjoyed 
a happy though short-lived existence. Due to the constant change 
and shift of men, through release for overseas service, it was 
impossible to long hold any team intact at any of the camps, and 
this militated in a large way against organized athletics. Volley- 
balls and volley-ball nets, quoits, baseball paraphernalia and 
basket-ball equipment were furnished by the Y. M. C. A. and 
from company funds. 

First Provisional calisthenics were as distinctive as First Pro- 
visional guard duty. First Provisional barracks, or First Pro- 
visional paper-work. Adapted from the best in the French and 
English schools by Colonel Rose, they became standardized by 
constant application at Regimental Headquarters and were finally 
prescribed for the line companies. Like everything else First 
Provisional, they were active, intense and constructive. Their 
value was dual — psychological and physical. Because of the 
element of contest entering into them they were interesting; 
their very forms and results sent the men to the barracks laughing, 
and their vigor made them immediately productive of physical 
development. 

Here is a concrete example of the value of the First Provisional 
school of calisthenics. 



328 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

They were put into effect with the fall training-class of two 
men from each unit on the regiment's line that came into head- 
quarters in September, 191 8, for special work and instruction. 
After a month of these calisthenics, 22 of the 26 men were put 
into football scrimmage one afternoon for an hour of incessant 
play marked by but one five-minute breathing period. Not a 
man dropped out of the game; not a man was laid out, and every 
one of the 22 was out for calisthenics the next morning. 

There were 24 parts to the First Provisional School of Calis- 
thenics. Witness a typical morning on the oval at headquarters: 

The men trot on slowly, clad lightly or hea^vily, according to 
the morning. Taking distance, they are ready. 

(i) The Windmill. At the command, "wind up," first the 
right arm is swung around and around, stiff, from the shoulder. 
The movement is reversed; then the left arm; reversed; then both 
arms; reversed. Rest. 

Now it must be understood in the beginning that except when 
otherwise indicated all these movements are at the tense. Fists 
are closed, muscles are tightened, and head, shoulders and legs 
set under tension until the command, "Rest," when the entire 
body relaxes and almost droops; one foot is thrown about ten 
inches from the other and the right wrist is clasped by the left 
hand, or the left wrist by the right hand, and pressure suddenly 
applied. This jerks the shoulders back into a strained position, 
which, nevertheless, rests the back muscles and develops the chest. 

(2) Fists on shoulders, elbows touching. Back — as far as the 
shoulders will go; continued: 

(3) Arms extended forward and horizontally, hands open, 
palms touching. Back as far as possible in wide sweep, rising on 
toes at the time and endeavoring to touch the backs of the hands 
behind the back while arms are horizontal. 

By this time your command has warmed up. The blood is 
performing its natural functions; the stiffness is out of the muscles. 
The lungs are ready to receive full benefit of the breathing exercise. 
Rest. Then: 

(4) Raise arms at sides to horizontal; from this position inhale, 
raising arms extended slowly overhead from the side. Hold at 
vertical momentarily. Lower arms, clench fists and pound vigor- 
ously on chest, exhaling by tightly compressed whistle. 

(5) Fists on shoulders; elbows touching, jerk forearm down 
to horizontal position at side; continue. 

(6) Heels ten inches apart, hands on hips. Squat to heels, 
weight resting on toes, slowly as possible, body erect. Rise in 
same manner. This exercise gives full effect only when lowering 



MORALE 329 

and rising motion is scarcely perceptible. Instructor should give 
adequate time for last man to get down and then give command, 
"Springs." Men spring themselves two or three times before 
command, "Rise." 

(7) Fists on shoulders, elbows touching. Full swing of fists 
downward to position four inches in rear of legs. Arms should 
be in tense arc at last position. 

(8) Off your feet! Men throw themselves to the ground in 
the shortest way possible without attempting to break fall. This 
is done on both right and left sides, feet leading in fall. 

(9) Scissors — high! One. — From attention leap into the air 
directly up, throwing hands together above head and landing with 
feet spread wide apart. Two. — Bending forward and down, swing 
hands, palms together from position above the head to as far 
between the legs as possible. Three. — Stand erect, swinging 
hands back to position above head. Four. — Leap upward as 
far as possible, assuming, upon landing, position of attention and 
reversing Number One. 

(10) Squat! With heels together squat to ground, placing 
hands, with fingers wide-spread, flat on ground, palms down, 
elbows inside knee joints. Fog! Rock forward on elbows and 
hands, lifting feet from ground. This position can be sustained 
for some time after a little practice. 

(11) From the position of squat throw feet back straight, 
resting on hands and toes, with body bridged and rigid. Forward 
to squat position. Continue. 

(12) Chest, touch. From bridge position, lower on hands 
until chest only touches ground. Repeat. This may be varied 
by biting a mouthful of grass each time. 

(13) Roll to the right, maintaining a position with right hand 
and foot touching ground, body rigid, width of body perpen- 
dicular to ground. Raise left arm and leg in air. Lower. Roll 
and repeat on left side, raising right arm and leg. 

(14) Stand on right leg only, left drawn up and clasped near 
ankle, toe of left pointing down in rigid position. Rise on right 
toe. Same on left leg. 

(15) Whirls, {a) On one foot, arms extended, jump into air 
and face to right, landing on one foot at position of right-face. 
{h) On one foot, arms extended, jump into the air, landing at 
position of about-face, {c) On one foot, arms extended, jump 
into the air, making complete circle and landing facing in same 
direction as at time of command, {d) The same whirls may be 
used in beginning with both feet on the ground, and should be 
used both to the right and left. 



330 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

(i6) Backward and down on hands in squatting position, 
hands and feet only touching. Extend legs together briskly at com- 
mand, "Forward,'' and \yithdraw to body at command, "Back." 
At forward, body is bridged and rigid, face toward the sky. 

(17) From "Back" of (15), extend first the right and then the 
left leg, alternately and fast, throwing the buttocks and torso 
into the air as this running exercise goes on. 

(18) Prone. Raise legs to vertical alternately, and then both 
together, hands clasped behind neck. 

(19) Prone, lunge. From prone on back, hands clasped behind 
neck, draw in legs so that knees nearly touch chin. Thrust legs 
violently into air upward and forward. This should lunge the 
body a distance of about six inches at each repetition. 

(20) Knee and body lunges. From position of attention 
step forward with right leg, bending down and clasping it around 
above knee with both arms, chin against knee. Alternate with 
left; four counts. 

(21) Cross swings. With heels ten inches apart and fists 
clenched, raise arms parallel to ground, with forearm at right 
angles to upper arm; swing right and then left as far as possible, 
putting strength into hook and maintaining position of toes. 

(22) One-two punch. With left foot extended and hands in 
boxing position: One. — Advancing right foot, shifting weight 
of body and cross-hooking with right, left guarding face; Two. — 
Advancing left foot, shifting weight and cross-hooking with left, 
right guarding face. May be alternated with right and left 
upper-cut, head down. 

(23) Shoulders roll. With men in line at an interval of four 
feet. Forward, run four steps, and then roll on right shoulder, 
feet bunched to erect; four steps, and roll; continue; alternate 
with left. It is the football roll and is hard. Soft ground or 
thick-grassed turf should be used for initial lessons. 

(24) Hop-fight and battle royal. Men choose partners and, 
hopping on one foot, attempt to buck opponents over with 
shoulders. If other foot touches ground it is default. Alternate 
with left foot and shoulder. Close with battle royal, in which 
men form in ring and every one is every one's else enemy. 

These, with Indian wrestling, old-fashioned Snap-the-Whip, 
Bull-in-the-ring, and Body Tug-of-war, made up the First Pro- 
visional's calisthenics. As the men increased in strength and wind 
the length of the exercise time was increased by increased repeti- 
tions of the various exercises. Periodical endurance tests were 
held on (10), (11) and (12) and the Battle Royal. Occasionally 
the men were sent to company streets, hopping in single file. 




Men and Officers of the First Provisional Who Were Unique 

IN Their Work 

Upper left — Lieut. Edgar Friend, dental surgeon of the First Pro- 
visional, doing some excavating on Lieut. Therkildsen. Right — Lieut. 
Louis Gutterman, who had charge of the Camp Whitman Hay Detail, 
one of the meanest jobs of the whole work. Center — Capt. Howland Pell, 
the paymaster and voucher specialist. Lower left — Capt. Eugene Scher- 
man, regimental inspector. Right^'^trgt. Ray Yngstrom, poet, philoso- 
pher, and nurse, who volunteered to face the influenza epidemic and 
drew as his share of the work the incineration of the deadly scourge refuse. 




Top row, left to right — Lieut. Martha Turner, National League for 
Women's Service; Captain Rupprecht, National League for Women's 
Service; Capt. Edith O'Brien, Motor Corps of America. Center — Capt. 
Adelaide Baylis, National League for Women's Service, later of the 
American Red Cross Ambulance Corps. Bottom row, left to right — Corp. 
Prudence Cobb, Motor Corps of America; Lieut. Agnes De Jahn, Na- 
tional League for Women's Service; Lieut. Maud Spaulding, Ambulance 
Corps. Dutchess County Home Defense Reserve. 



MORALE 531 

Officers were brought into headquarters from the line and taught 
these exercises that they might teach the men of their commands. 
At the time of the influenza epidemic the Commanding Officer 
toured the entire 2nd BattaHon Hne, giving lessons in the caHs- 
thenics personally. On one day he went through the entire 
setting-up exercises with the men of five different posts. 

These First Provisional calisthenics are not here given as better 
than those prescribed in the regulations, but they were better 
for the conditions they were intended to meet. They are not 
offered as the best, but as the best of both the French and Eng- 
lish schools, adapted to best meet the needs of the First Pro- 
visional's work. And they proved their worth. 



All of which proves the chaplain's contention regarding the 
equation referred to at the beginning of this portion of the regi- 
ment's history. From religious activities and from recreational 
work the men developed esprit de corps. From the athletics they 
drew stamina and esprit de corps. And guts plus esprit de corps 
resulted in the morale that was needed to maintain the line. 



22 



TRANSPORTATION AND SUPPLIES 

I 

The Three Kinds 

SOME ONE has said that the degree of a country's civiHzation 
may be measured by its transportation. 

If that is true, it explains why the officers of the First Pro- 
visional Regiment were in such a savage state most of the time. 
According to that standard, the army that Pharaoh lost when the 
Israelites watered his stock at the Red Sea was considerably 
advanced in the matter of civilization over the twelve hundred 
men who took the field in the interests of the New York City 
water supply in August, 1917, and continued thereon until after 
the armistice was signed. Holy Writ records that there were sev- 
eral hundred chariots destroyed when the captains of Pharaoh's 
host made a wrong guess as to where the ford was. The First 
Provisional had no chariots, and the captains of the host never 
had to guess where the Ford was. They knew. It was stuck 
somewhere, with something broken. 

Webster's Dictionary, which, next to the First Provisional Regi- 
ment, is supposed to be the best authority as to what transporta- 
tion really is, will tell you that the word is derived from the Latin 
word, **Trans," meaning across, and the \erb, *'porto," meaning 
to carry. In other words, the general idea of transportation is 
something that will carry something or some one somewhere. 

For a peace-time definition that has nothing to do with guarding 
the water supply of the City of New York; that is all very well, 
but the books have the wrong idea. 

Transportation, like all Gaul, is divided into three parts, the 
first and the surest kind being what you can borrow; the second 
what you furnish yourself, and the third publicly owned trans- 
portation. The first two kinds go and the third does not — not 
always; that is, not generally, or, in other words, sometimes. 
The first two kinds are "without expense to the City or State of 
New York." Somebody else pays for the tires, oil and gas. The 



TRANSPORTATION AND SUPPLIES 333 

third kind is pretty near in the same class, because it wears out 
few tires and uses Httle gas or oil. The only big item about it is 
repairs. Sometimes it breaks down on the way back from the 
repair shop. 

There is another thing about the third kind. It is hard to 
find. If the First Provisional Regiment had been in the field 
another year, some of the publicly owned transportation would 
have melted into the scenery. There is a little verse or two which 
appeared in The Watchdog once, and which tells the story nicely. 
It was entitled the "Regimental Song-and-Dance," and it can 
be sung to the tune of the ''Regimental March." 



"We've a darned long line 
And it's mighty fine 

When cars are free as air; 
But in guarding pipe 
It's a case of swipe 

If you'd travel anywhere. 
'Cause the cars are short, 
And although one ort 

To go here and there and yon, 
You can bet your boots 
And some cheroots 

That conveyance stops at 'con.' 



chorus: 

'Oh, the chug! chug! chug! of the little Ford 

And the smell of gasoline! 
As we climb aboard and we pray the Lord 

For another small machine. 
Then we go a mile; wait an hour, while 

We get as mad as can be. 
Till we leave the ship and wind up the trip 

On the good old N. Y. G." 



A regiment of 1,500 men on 100 miles of line meant, funda- 
mentally and primarily, transportation, and plenty of it. The 
very plan which Colonel Rose adopted for the work, and 
the very number of men which replaced the 3,200 Federalized 
National Guard troops were predicated on a certain amount of 
transportation, which was agreed to by the City of New York. 
How hard a time the regiment had to secure that transportation 
has already been told in the story of mobilization days, and it is 



334 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

of the handling of that transportation, of the needs of the line, 
and of the auxiliary transportation that this chapter deals. 

And since on transportation depended the supply department 
of the regiment, the matter of supplies and supplying is considered 
in this connection. But that is a matter for an expert to discuss, 
and transportation and supplies, from the expert's viewpoint, are 
taken up in this chapter by Captain De Garmo and Captain 
Miller personally, who, as the officers responsible for both sides 
of the river from the beginning of the regiment's history, know 
more about it than any one else. Use of transportation and 
methods of supply are so fully cared for in the two articles that 
this introduction will deal only with the matter of early routing, 
and the auxiliary transportation furnished the regiment by the 
public-spirited women and organizations of Westchester County 
and elsewhere. 



The First Provisional Regiment entered a territory, strange, 
for the most part, to its officers and men, without road maps on 
which the Aqueduct and its posts were shown, and with little 
or no information as to the time-saving routes in getting from 
one post to another, or the state of the short-cut roads. 

That was in the days of the old green Lozier, the Police De- 
partment trucks, the decrepit motorcycles, and the hired trans- 
portation. In other words, the days of H. Pushae Williams, who, 
as 2nd Lieutenant and transportation officer, was tireless, energetic 
and indefatigable. 

To Lieut. Williams, "in addition to his other duties," fell the 
task of marking the roads, so that the drivers of the Supply Com- 
pany trucks, inspecting officers and sector drivers could find their 
way about without losing time. Transportation then, as always, 
was at a minimum and there was not time to lose, in round-about 
travels. • 

And so from Ashokan to Hillview and in all the little cross- 
roads, back roads, and intersecting ways that led to the outposts, 
there sprang up the black arrow with the notation, N. Y. G. on 
the card which bore it, or the white-painted arrow on the fence- 
post, stone wall or telegraph-pole. These arrows saved much 
time in the early days, and at the close of the regiment's service 
there were still a number of the painted arrows and one or two 
ragged old cardboard indicators at various points along the line. 
The method was typically First Provisional and is mentioned here 
for that reason. 

How much territory was necessarily covered by the various 



TRANSPORTATION AND SUPPLIES 335 

inspectors and staff officers from day to day may be judged that 
in the first two months of the regiment's service the odometer 
on the Commanding Officer's car showed a total of 18,000 miles. 
Other staff officers, the battalion commanders and the inspectors 
covered as much proportionately. 

Almost from the first the regiment was without transportation 
for the Chief Medical Officer, the Medical Officer of the ist Bat- 
talion, the Disbursing Officer, the Inspecting Officer of the ist Bat- 
talion, and the Supply Officer, except such transportation as was 
furnished by them personally or secured by them for use in the 
service. The Chief Medical Officer furnished his own car through- 
out the entire period of service. The Medical Officer of the ist 
Battalion, Capt. E. C. Waterbury, also furnished his own car, 
and when that was laid up through accident while making an 
inspection, he was rendered helpless except for the aid furnished 
by the auxiliary motor corps. Captain Pell, as the Disbursing 
Officer of the regiment, furnished his own car from the time of 
his entry into the field, wearing one out and maintaining both at 
his own expense. Capt. T. T. Lane, as Inspecting Officer of the 
1st Battalion, was absolutely dependent upon the auxiliary motor 
corps until he purchased a car for the service, and, due to repairs 
made necessary by the continual service to which the car was put, 
was never entirely independent of outside aid. Capt. Leo C. 
Harte, commanding the 3rd Battalion, was obliged to use his 
own car for the work, or else deprive the Medical Officer or Bat- 
talion Inspector of a car. Whenever any need arose beyond the 
bare necessities of the usual day's work outside assistance had to 
to be called on. The breaking of a sector car rendered the sector 
helpless in the matter of supplies and subsistence delivery to 
outposts, unless there was some source from which a car could be 
secured. 

The auxiliary motor units which from time to time served with 
the First Provisional on Aqueduct service, formed the greatest 
asset the regiment had outside of its own resources. This had 
been acknowledged by the State government in one instance, 
and since the history of the First Provisional is interwoven with 
the splendid work of these organizations, something should be 
said at this time of them. 

Early in the regiment's history the need for a volunteer emer- 
gency transportation service became obvious. There was nothing 
to insure headquarters against conditions arising on the line 
which might make necessary the immediate shipment of reserves 
to some given point. The Commanding Officer had been advised 
to be prepared for all emergencies, and, should the time come ripe 



336 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

for an attack in force by German reservists in this country, there 
was little doubt that such attack would be made. The line was 
too thin to permit of a sufficient force at any one point to meet 
such an attack, and it was therefore a necessity to have on call 
sufficient transportation to make a quick movement of troops. 

The National League for Woman's Service had established a 
motor corps, and it was to this organization at its offices in New 
York City that the need of the regiment was explained. It was 
pointed out that in addition to an emergency force, transportation 
to meet the various needs arising from time to time other than 
in crises, would be appreciated, and this led to a visit to head- 
quarters during the week of Sept. i6th, 1917, by Capt. Helen 
Bastedo, Lieut. Adelaide Bayliss, of Bedford, and Private L 
Hopper, representing the corps. Previous to this time much work 
had been done during the mobilization period by the corps through 
individual arrangement with the members of the V. C. A. located 
on the lower sectors, so that the representatives of the league were 
informed as to the work. 

The visit resulted in the establishment of a service by Lieut. 
Bayliss, who personally did most of the work throughout the 
late summer and the autumn of 1917 at headquarters. In the 
mean time Lieut. Rogers of Bronxville was aiding the lower sec- 
tors in the same manner, furnishing them with transportation 
when the need arose, transporting supplies and men on occasions, 
and assisting in the movement of both details. 

In the late autumn, Lieut. Bayliss delegated the work which 
she had been doing at headquarters to Miss Margaret Cochrane, 
postmistress at Bedford Village, who was one of the most en- 
thusiastic of the auxiliary drivers. And throughout the storms 
and cold of the winter. Miss Cochrane, who could give but one 
afternoon a week to the work, was always ready for any trip 
that might come to hand. 

During the early spring, Lieut. Bayliss, still working for the 
regiment, secured the interest of Mrs. Harold L. Turner, of Chap- 
paqua, whose brother. Col. Prentice Strong, commanded the 
1st Field Artillery. Mrs. Turner was so profoundly interested 
in the work and showed such an appreciation of the needs of the 
regiment, that she was made corps lieutenant early in the summer 
and set about organizing an effective body to carry on the trans- 
portation for headquarters and Companies A, B, and D. In this 
she was assisted by Mrs. WiUiam Mills, of Chappaqua, and Miss 
Ruth Elliott, of White Plains. 

In addition to her uniformed corps of twelve, Lieut. Turner 
maintained a reserve corps of private citizens who signified their 



TRANSPORTATION AND SUPPLIES 337 

willingness to loan their cars in cases of emergency or at intervals. 
With Lieut. Turner and her uniformed group taking the burden 
of the routine work for headquarters and the companies mentioned, 
while the others were held in reserve, there was effected the most 
satisfactory auxiliary transportation arrangement that had yet 
been experienced by the regiment. About the same time Lieut. 
Agnes De Jahn, of Scarsdale, organized a similar unit which met 
the needs of the 3rd Battalion line and at times assisted head- 
quarters. Captain Rupprecht, in command of the Greenwich, 
Conn., unit of the National Woman's League for Service motor 
corps, also furnished cars on regular schedule during the early 
part of the summer at Regimental Headquarters and assisted in 
the transportation pf troops on the line. 

These women met all kinds of emergencies, not least of which 
was the transportation of the Medical Officer and the Inspection 
Officer of the ist BattaHon on their daily tours. Often the auxili- 
ary drivers would cover 150 miles in a day and 200-mile trips were 
not uncommon. Short-haul work comprised the greater part of 
the service, and every effort was made to avoid calling out the 
drivers at night. On many occasions, however, this was abso- 
lutely necessary, as in the case of the Medical Officer, or when 
frequent tire and engine trouble brought the cars into camp late. 

On one occasion Lieut. Turner was called into service when 
prisoners escaped from the prison camp. This was really dangerous 
work, as the men had made up their minds not to be caught. 

That afternoon furnishes an interesting example of the work or 
the auxiliary corps. Within a half-hour from the time she was 
notified of the emergency she was at headquarters with her blue 
car that traveled so many miles in the service of the regiment. 
The car was utilized in posting pickets at the intersecting roads 
in the vicinity and in establishing contact between the mounted 
patrols sent out to cover the back roads, as well as the infantry 
patrols covering the fields. Later it was used to take a field 
ration to designated points where the men were to eat. And 
meantime it was operated in conjunction with the headquarters 
cars in covering the railroad stations and lines and the State roads. 

Just after evening mess the car started out from headquarters 
with an officer and two armed searchers. As it was proceeding 
along the Croton Lake road one of the fugitives stepped out of 
the bushes and started along the road. The brakes went on with 
a slam and the officer covered the prisoner with a revolver as the 
car slid by. For an instant the head of the driver was between 
the weapon and the prisoner, but the driver did not turn a hair. 
Later she remarked that she had not been very comfortable. 



338 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

In 48 hours Lieut. Turner covered the entire line of the First 
Provisional Regiment twice, and 24 hours later covered it again. 
On one occasion she was caught in a terrific rainstorm as she was 
returning from headquarters after a day's work. On a lonely, 
dark road, with engine broken down and with no certainty of 
help, she quietly went to work on her engine, and although 
drenched, was able to proceed in a half-hour. 

Her big job was in the organization of the transportation forces 
that conveyed 500 men of the First Provisional to the Peekskill 
State rifle range for instruction on the 2nd, 3rd, 5th and 6th of 
July, 1918. 

The regiment had no transportation available for this, and 
without the assistance furnished by Lieut. Turner and her asso- 
ciates the men of the regiment on the eastern side of the Hudson 
would have been unable to receive the benefit of small-arms 
practice, as it was necessary to cover all points on the line while 
men on practice were temporarily relieved. At the request of 
the Commanding Officer, Mrs. Turner undertook to co-ordinate 
the work of more than 20 volunteer cars daily along the line of the 
1st and 3rd Battalions, taking the men to the rifle range and getting 
them back to their units. In this she was assisted by Captain 
Rogers, Captain Rupprecht and Lieut. De Jahn. For this par- 
ticular bit of work she was thanked by the Adjutant-General of 
the State in a letter which commended her and the work of her 
corps. 

With the formation of the Citizens' Committee, the Red Cross 
Motor Corps advised that it would undertake to handle regimental 
transportation. This it was never able to do, except in cases of 
sickness, but this announcement led to the demobilization of 
Mrs. Turner's corps about the ist of October. She responded in 
emergencies, however, until the last month of the regiment's ser- 
vice in the field, and was in charge of the transportation of the 
men to camp entertainments. 

The work of Lieut. Spaulding and the Poughkeepsie unit of the 
Ambulance Corps Home Defense is discussed in the chapter 
dealing with the influenza epidemic, but has its place at this 
point in chronological order as a transportation matter. Lieut. 
Spaulding's service, and that of her corps members, were invalu- 
able to the First Provisional and doubtless saved the lives of 
many men on the line. Figures from Lieut. Spaulding show that 
during the epidemic her unit totaled 2,639 hours 12 minutes, and 
13,241 miles. 

This included the period from Oct. 8th, through Nov. 22nd, and 
was divided among 28 drivers, as follows: 



TRANSPORTATION AND SUPPLIES 339 

Driver Time Mileage 

Lieut. Spaulding 672 hrs. 50 min. 3^568 

2nd Lieut. Emma SherriU. . . 10 hrs. 30 min. 120 

1st Sgt. Ethel Clapp 93 hrs. 479 

Sgt. Helen Waldo 107 hrs. 45 min. 502 

Corp. Henrietta Fraleigh. ... 5 hrs. 82 

Corp. Evelyn Jones 6 hrs. 45 min. 70 

Corp. Dorothy Smith 30 hrs. 15 min. 250 

Corp. Catherine Waterman. . 144 hrs. 31 min. 555 

Corp. Helena White 97 hrs. 35 min. 340 

Pvt. Marguerite Bower 10 hrs. 30 min. 170 

Pvt. Mary T. BrinckerhofF. . 9 hrs. 45 min. 74 

Pvt. Harriet Butts 21 hrs. 282 

Pvt. Edythe Campbell 179 hrs. 10 min. 863 

Pvt. Anna Clay 105 hrs. 520 

Pvt. Hortense Doob 16 hrs. 30 min. 154 

Pvt. Marguerite Guernsey. . . 36 hrs. 189 

Pvt. Mable Lent 11 hrs. 150 

Pvt. Myra Matteson 48 hrs. 55 min. 452 

Pvt. Louise Newcomb 60 hrs. 35 min. 320 

Pvt. Flora Perkins 67 hrs. 30 min. 224 

Pvt. M. May Reynolds 69 hrs. 30 min. 453 

Pvt. Marion Rhynders 61 hrs. 30 min. 254 

Pvt. Marion Sedgwick 8 hrs. 50 min. 150 

Pvt. LiUian Tiffany 39 hrs. 40 min. 376 

Pvt. Louise Wagner 306 hrs. 15 min. 776 

Pvt. Margaret Washburn.. . . 68 hrs. 50 min. 332 

Pvt. Jane Wesley 261 hrs. 35 min. I>i69 

Pvt. Lillian Wolin 90 hrs. 367 

With the transfer of Regimental Headquarters to Ossining the 
auxiliary transportation history entered its last phase. And it 
fell to the Tarrytown Unit of the Motor Corps of America to write 
the last page of that history. Major Bastedo had become the 
head of the Motor Corps of America and it was fitting that, since 
she was responsible for the beginnings of auxiliary work in the 
regiment, it should be her organization that concluded it. Ar- 
rangements were made with Capt. E. V. O'Brien and Lieut. J. 
Todd, of the Tarrytown unit, whereby one car was furnished each 
day at headquarters in the last rushing days of the regiment's 
service. Those who served with the Tarrytown unit in this work 
included Sergt. L. Stern, Corp. Prudence Cobb, Corp. Jessamine 
Patteson, Privates J. Bacon, P. Bacon, E. Diggs, C. Herman, 
J. La Bau, K. Randall, C. Rosenstein, S. Walker, and M. White, 



340 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

In addition to their transportation work, both Corp. Cobb and 
Private La Bau served as nurses in the hospital. 

The question may be asked which was asked at the beginning 
of the work of women with troops in the field abroad, "What of 
the endless possibility of complications arising between persons 
of the opposite sex, of all varieties of temperament, thrown to- 
gether at all hours of day and night on the broad highway.?" 

And the answer is the record as it stands, without question, and 
without incident. The results confute the false prophets who 
predicted disaster. It was given to the First Provisional to be a 
part of that stepping-stone with which woman, in the hour of 
her country's greatest need, mounted up to her place beside the 
man behind the gun — a place from which she can never be removed. 

The most delightful thing about the auxiliary transportation 
was its utter impersonality, respected alike by the men and officers 
of the line. The uniform worn by a motor-corps driver made her 
a member of the regiment and that eliminated the question of 
personality at once. Visitors at headquarters might now and then 
have been a bit shocked by the curt orders sent out to the women 
drivers in emergency work. But withal a fine courtesy and a 
dignified though undisguised admiration for the women of the 
corps characterized the attitude of the officers and men throughout. 

"We are, of course, not obliged to volunteer, but when we have 
once volunteered we will take orders unquestioningly." This was 
the attitude of those women of Westchester County and vicinity 
who did so much for the First Provisional. And the orders they 
received were not easy ones to carry out in all instances. Take 
an example of one incident in the motor-corps work. It is a tele- 
phone conversation with a staflF officer on one end of the wire 
and a motor-corps lieutenant on the other: 

Officer: "Hello! Hello! Is that you, lieutenant.? Well, there's 
been a bad accident at Cold Spring; one of the boys had a nasty 
tumble. Everything is out up here and we've got to get the doctor 
there just as fast as we can make it. Hospital case, you know." 

Voice at the other end: "Oh, my! Well, I'll come myself." 

Officer: "What's the matter.? Haven't you had dinner?" 

Voice: "Oh yes; just some people here for the evening." 

Officer: "Tough luck. Be at the foot of the hill in a half- 
hour and pick up Doc. Good-by." 

In a half-hour she had changed from a dinner-gown to her 
uniform, had driven half a dozen miles, and was waiting for the 
medical officer. It spoiled her evening. She was unable to return 
to her guests till ten o'clock. But it was a part of the hand she 
had undertaken to play for her country in its time of need. 



1 



TRANSPORTATION AND SUPPLIES 341 



II 

Transportation Lines 

BY 

Captain L. B. De Garmo, R. L., 

Supply Officer of the First Provisional Regiment from 

August, 1917, to November, 1918 

******* 

[Editorial Note. — It will be observed that Captain De 
Garmo, who saw much service in the Guard on the Border 
in 1916, has considered the transportation needs of the 
regiment in the same class as required for combat troops 
holding a line of defense. It should also be noted that in 
this paper he disagrees with Captain Miller, the 2nd Bat- 
talion Supply Officer, on the matter of mules. This dif- 
ferent viewpoint results from the different terrain covered 
by the two supply officers. While mules would have been 
of great help to Miller on the mountain roads, De Garmo 
could gain little or nothing by their use on the improved 
highways east of the Hudson. The great need of his de- 
partment was new trucks, and this is his theme.] 

SfC ^ SfC SfC ^ 9|i 9|C 

Speed is the essence of transportation in the army, both during 
war time and peace. An army traveling on foot in the old days 
got along very nicely with mules and horses, the animals, 
keeping pace with the marching troops, hauling their loads of 
4,000 to 5,000 pounds very comfortably on ordinary roads. Even 
in the present war, mules and horses were indispensable to the 
quartermaster and ordnance departments, it being necessary at 
times to use them as pack animals to bring the ammunition up 
to the gunners of the larger ordnance pieces. But far back of the 
lines, where the roads had not suffered from the terrific gun-fire 
of the enemy, all material was transported by the five- and ten-ton 
trucks which have become to us in this vicinity such a common 
sight. 

The purpose of this comparison is to show how necessary good 
transportation is to both combatant and non-combatant troops, 
no matter what the duty to be performed, no matter what the 
result. 



342 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

Taking this matter up further, so as to fix in the mind of the 
reader the importance of good transportation, I might say that 
battles have been lost because not enough attention had been 
paid to its transportation, and a good part of our cause was nearly- 
lost because we were equipped with weak material. 

The function of combat, field, ammunition, supply, sanitary, 
and engineer trains is to keep the commands to which they are 
attached at all times ready for action without hampering their 
freedom of movement. 

To meet these requirements demands not only well-thought-out 
orders by the superior authority, but also the highest sense of 
responsibility on the part of those in command of these trains. 

These officers must be prepared to make any sacrifice in order 
that their trains shall arrive at the destination appointed at the 
hours fixed. 

Our own transportation problems were varied and many. The 
folly of second-hand material is only too apparent. Careful plans 
were laid out by Colonel Rose and myself in August, 1917, as to 
exactly the number of motor-cars that were necessary to do our 
work. We both knew that we were about to take on our shoulders 
a two-year job, and we desired brand-new equipment to do it 
with. We are still waiting for it, and the armistice has been 
signed. 

The State camp at Peekskill was picked as the rendezvous for 
the troops which were to guard the east side of the Hudson River, 
and Highland, N. Y., across from Poughkeepsie, N. Y., the ren- 
dezvous for troops of the west side. Ten days' rations were ordered 
and delivered at the nearest docks, viz., Morton Line dock, 
Peekskill, for State Camp; and Hudson River Steamboat dock 
at Highland for Highland Camp. 

Four trucks were delivered at Peekskill Camp by the Adjutant- 
General's department for our use. But, however, these trucks 
had seen their best days, having been used at Camp Whitman 
during the Mexican trouble in hauling supplies from Peekskill 
to Whitman and back. The next problem was to find drivers, 
and this meant that men who had only driven Ford cars in their 
lifetime jumped aboard these trucks and made some attempt to 
run them. We laid up at Peekskill for two days, and on the third 
day started to send out camp equipage and commissary supplies 
with the troops along the fifty-mile line. 

If any one had sat down to think it over carefully he would 
have said it could not be done, but as none gave the problem much 
consideration as to the feasibility, in due course of time every one 
was settled on the line with practically everything he needed. 



TRANSPORTATION AND SUPPLIES 343 

Of the Ford trucks of the two-ton type that were with the 
Supply Company, it was only possible to keep two running for 
several months because of the constant breaking down of some 
part of their machinery and being sent to a near-by garage for 
repairs. Many difficult problems on long hauls were carried out 
successfully. However, more efficiency could have been attained 
had we had new trucks and more of them. There is no doubt 
that commanders went without a great many things that should 
have been delivered on account of their semi-garrison duty. 

Two types of trucks are essential in the class of work which 
had to be performed in the First Provisional Regiment; that is 
to say, the heavy-type trucks, from two to five ton for short 
and long hauls that did not necessitate rapid delivery. Lighter 
trucks equipped with pneumatic tires and high speed with a 
capacity of fifteen hundred pounds for distant hauls where speed 
was required and an early delivery of some article of quartermaster 
material needed at the camp. This can be described more thor- 
oughly by giving an example. 

During the winter of 1917-18 we had a very severe season. 
Winter O. D.'s were not delivered as early as they should have 
been, and when they were received by the Supply Officer it neces- 
sitated a quick delivery to all points of the line where the uniforms 
were badly needed for the comfort of the troops. The heavy 
truck, with large capacity and slow movement, such as the U. S. 
Army equipped their forces in Europe, are the best type of trans- 
portation for long hauls of subsistence supplies that are not re- 
quired in an emergency. 

The good old faithful mule so long used would not have been 
even an auxiliary to the Supply Department of the First Pro- 
visional Regiment, as our hauls were too long and the terrain 
of the country too rolling to permit them to withstand the terrific 
strain. They would not have even stood up under the shortest 
hauls and under the best conditions that we had. 

In December, 1917, our trucks were increased from four to ten, 
but with such trucks as supplied, they being no better than the 
first, we were still unable to keep any more than two or three 
running at any time, and up to the present writing we are still 
waiting for the new trucks asked for when we first came on the 
line in August, 191 7, and we are still working with our original 
trucks which have been many times in the repair shops, four of 
which are in the scrap-heap now. 



344 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

Ill 
Second Battalion Supply Problems 

BY 

Capt. Elmer H. Miller, Q. M. C. 

On Aug. 8th, 1917, our trouble began. To make a complete 
story, I must begin at the very first. On Aug. 6th, 1917, I was 
told by Colonel Rose, then in Newburgh, to go to Highland 
and take care of some troops that were coming in at that point, 
upon which I foresaw my troubles, having been in Highland a few 
days before. When I arrived at Highland the first instalment of 
480 men waited at the railroad station, and the only thing that 
we could call our own was a very high hill about one and a half 
miles from the station. This point was to be our camp, if it could 
be called such, for as yet no truck had arrived from the Arsenal 
or Peekskill State camp, and it seemed to me, after looking over 
"the boys," that our whole future depended upon the arrival of 
those trucks. 

Knowing motor-trucks and the quartermaster truck-drivers, I 
did not give up hope, though it was late in the afternoon. The 
men were guided to camp. Soon after our night "mess" (the 
name is correct) a very welcome chug-chug was heard coming 
up the mountain road, which every one was to learn spelled 
blankets and tents for what was to be known as the 2nd Bat- 
talion, First Provisional Regiment. When the two trucks were 
unloaded, it was my next duty to get something for breakfast. 
Where or how I did not care, but I was going to get it for the boys. 

I took one truck and went down to the ferry landing. There 
they told me that the boat had stopped running for the night, 
so I had to kidnap the captain and take the boat to Poughkeepsie 
to get suppHes. I first had to wake the baker and then the man- 
ager of Armour's cold-storage plant, but we got our breakfast. 
From then on we had trouble with transportation. The next 
day our two trucks went back to Peekskill. We did not hear of 
them again until three days later, when they arrived with cots, 
blankets and mess kits. On this day we had to take over our line 
of guard on the water supply of New York City. We broke camp 
at 4.30 A.M. and proceeded to our respective places, Companies A, 
B and H going from Highland to Kingston by way of the West 
Shore. There we separated the companies, A Company going to 



TRANSPORTATION AND SUPPLIES 345 

Atwood, B to Brown's Station and H Company to High Falls. 
The troops for the south end were sent to Cornwall by rail, 
for St. Elmo and New Paltz by cars. The Supply Company 
(namely myself and one man who could not drive a truck) started 
out to get supplies through to each company. With one truck 
that did not have any lights or brakes we had to go to each com- 
pany, and driving over roads we had never heard of before, with- 
out lights and brakes, was no small matter. The Supply Company 
was in distressing need of trucks and truck-drivers, as it were. 
We had to buy our supplies by day and deliver them by night. 

On Aug. 1 2th, 191 7, I received two more trucks from Peekskill, 
which gave me a total of three. But we were soon to find out 
that our rejoicing was to be very brief, for one of the trucks was 
unserviceable and would not run, so we had to get along on two 
trucks, which I now know was our full equipment in regard to 
truck transportation. 

I often sat up at night and wished for the "old army mule." 
The Supply Company could have been strengthened 100 per cent, 
with four teams of army mules or four more trucks. With the 
roads in the condition as they were in that battalion, it would take 
six motor-trucks at all times, or four teams of mules. And I 
would rather have had the mules for all times. On Nov. 24th, 
1917, it snowed about eight inches and our motor transpor- 
tation was laid up for seven days, during which time we hired 
teams to deliver our rations. I then bought one set of traction 
rings, which we attached to one of our trucks. This did very 
nicely, until Dec. 12th, when it snowed so hard that our trucks 
were out of commission until late in March. All of this time 
we had an average of seven teams each day, at $5.00 per day. 
On Feb. 3rd we moved Troop G from St. Elmo to Newburgh, 
which took us 27 hours to complete, for lack of proper transporta- 
tion. At no time was our transportation up to what it should 
have been, and at times we had to depend on personally owned 
cars. 

At the beginning of the regiment there were no rations purchased, 
so that the Supply Officer had to make purchases to cover its bat- 
talions. The S. O. of the regiment bought and shipped all rations 
to the 2nd Battalion, but this was a failure, as the Supply Officer 
himself had two battalions to look after that covered about 65 
miles of line, and then all shipments were made by boat to High- 
land from New York City, and at times the freight would be so 
heavy that the boat could not take it all. Of course, rations for 
troops in the field did not bother the captain of the boat, so our 
supplies would often lie on the wharf at New York City for four 



346 H-A-L-TT 1 — WHA-ZAA ? 

and five days at a time, and the battalion would have to ration 
on about one-half of the allowance. On Sept. 15th we started 
to ration the 2nd Battalion from purchases made from J. J. Has- 
brouke, New Paltz, N. Y. We at first sent out a ten-day ration, 
with the exception of meat, bread and butter, which were delivered 
by our trucks to each camp and outpost on Tuesdays, Thursdays 
and Saturdays. 

After trying this for one month, we found that our trucks were 
on the road every day, and we did not care to have this, as the 
roads were in so very bad a condition that the trucks had to be 
overhauled about twice a week. So on Nov. ist we sent out a 
30-day ration at 42 cents, with the exception of meat, bread and 
butter, which we delivered as before. This was our best method, 
as with road and weather conditions the company commanders 
could figure on one month's ration that had to run one month. 
As before, with a ten-day issue, and inexperienced mess sergeants, 
the company would always run short. 

I have found the great trouble with the shortage of rations lies 
in cooks and mess sergeants that do not know or will not figure 
just what it takes for one meal for a company. Most mess 
sergeants go to the cook and tell him that the company ought to 
have this and ought to have that, but very few of them could 
tell how much. So one day the company lives in comfort and the 
next day it gets hardly anything. 

We sent out on the loth of November, 1917, a little list of 
articles that would help cooks and mess sergeants to ration their 
companies much easier than they had been doing. We figured that 
a loaf of bread should make eight slices, one can of tomatoes (No. 3 
cans) would serve four men, one can of pineapple would serve five 
men, two slices per man, and so on down the list. This worked 
out very well, so we issued on the 25th day of November a 15- 
day emergency ration, consisting of soda-crackets, canned corn, 
beans, peas, tomatoes, sweet potatoes, canned soups and corned- 
beef hash, and luck was with us, as on the 25th of November we 
received a very heavy snow that sent our transportation out of 
business. But by the ist of December the roads had cleared up 
so our trucks could again carry out a 30-day ration in addition to 
the 15-day emergency issue, which would carry each company un- 
til the 15th day of February. They needed it very badly, for 
on Dec. 12th about three feet of snow fell and we could not use 
our trucks again until along in March, so from the 12th of De- 
cember until March we had to depend upon horses and sleighs 
that could only carry about 500 pounds. This took care of us very 
well until the first of the month, when we had to send out another 




upper left — Lieut. Maud Spaulding and Ambulance Corps drivers, 
N. Y. H. D. Right— Utut. De Jahn and Sergeant Pope, N. L. W. S. 
Center left — Sergt. Charles Martin, chauflFeur to Colonel Rose. Right — 
The Bread Fleet. Lower — Lieut. Turner's " Bluebird" at Camp Fischer. 



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ASHOKAN TO HILLVIEW SATURDAY 



A STORY 0FJGINNIN6S 

}iow a Regiment of Green Troops Achieved 

me ImpossiblemJ? Hours 
FROM MOBILIZATIoFdAYS TO HOW 




INTRODUCING OURSELVES 

Someihing Aboui ihe Regimental Newspaper 
and the Why Of It 

NAME CONTEST OPEN TO ENLISTED MEN 



TheWatchdog 




|n.w^.,.;.H.| ,ANOM« UNIT 
INTHEFIELB 



Ills WvtbicCJIv '<> Cf'Rl'^-yil f onv o, SmJ^ — H,, p^ y^ u^ [,, 



The Watchdog 

BUFFALO TO NEW YORK ^mP 



YONKERS, SATURDAY. JANUARY : 



FIRE DRILLS AT 
HEADDUARTIRS 



Tt^w^khO^WoHjl "WHEN A rtLLER NEEDS A FRIEND" IjT^^^^T] [fl. H OFFICERS 

I .- . AREPROMOTEir 




AndtFiiswas The Watchdog. Three glimpses of tFie regimental 
paper tliat give an idea of its history, its trials, its make-up,, 
and its mission. 




upper — The Watchdog Contest Board (Colonel Rose, center). Lower 
— Sergt. Howard Seufert, mailing department of The Watzhdog, later a 
Chateau Thierry man. 



TRANSPORTATION AND SUPPLIES 347 

30-day ration. We loaded all rations in cars and shipped them to 
High Falls by rail for the three companies on the northern end. 
From there we hauled it by sleighs to each post, which took us 
about three times as long to deliver. For the south end we shipped 
to Gardiner by rail and there sent our sleighs out for three com- 
panies; the Machine Gun Company would get its issue from 
Newburgh, as this State road was kept open to traffic. 

Up to this date the 30-day issue has proven best, as a line that 
covers about 52 miles could not very well be covered but about 
once a month, with the very poor condition of our transportation. 

[Note by the Editor. — Captain Miller has modestly re- 
frained from telling of one of his prize "stunts" — the move- 
ment of gasoHne across the Hudson ferries throughout the 
entire war without detection or delay. Ferries will not take 
vehicles carrying gasoline, and, appreciating this early in 
the game. Captain Miller invariably marked his gasoline 
drums, "Disinfectant," while the drivers of his supply 
train were coached as to the ostensible nature of the loads 
they carried. It was not until the last week of the 2nd 
Battalion's demobilization that a green truck-driver gave 
the snap away at the Newburgh ferry, and as a result was 
delayed two days while he vainly sought for some ferriage 
line that would take his explosive cargo. The incident is 
cited as an example of Miller's ingenuity and resource- 
fulness.] 



23 



LITERATURE OF THE REGIMENT 

"* * * And we did a lot of kidding, 

Spent an awful lot of steam — 
(Steam that might have raised the devil 

In our regimental scheme) — 
Used to josh 'twixt post and outpost, 

And we took a lot of pride 
In our little weekly paper; 

Then— n^ Watchdog died!" 

— From "Seven-Bent Ballads." 

THE title of this chapter is not a misnomer; neither is it an 
exaggeration. In the ranks of the First Provisional Regiment, 
during its eighteen months of service, there was real literary ability, 
and that ability, through the various mediums of expression 
offered, held the mirror of the written word to life on the line and 
portrayed it faithfully. 

The lesson of this chapter is announced at its beginning, that 
he who reads may observe the truth. The lesson is this: Troops 
in the field do their work best when they are afforded a medium 
of expression wherein that work can be discussed pre-eminently. 

This statement does not need proof. It has the indorsement 
of the cantonment heads and the division commanders of the 
great war. It is already proven in the Rio Grande Rattler and 
Wadsworth Gas Attack, of the 27th Division, and in the Stars and 
Stripes of the American Expeditionary Forces. It finds proof 
in the cantonment publications, in the syndicated sheets of the 
southern camps, and in the post pamphlets. And it proved itself 
on the line of the First Provisional Regiment in the history at- 
tendant upon the birth and the death of the regimental paper. 
The Watchdog, which furnished to the First Provisional its medium 
of expression. 

Since it was through The Watchdog that the literature of the 
regiment found expression and the light of day, it is to the origin 
and growth of The Watchdog that we must first turn in this analysis 
of field-service fragments. And so: 

Scarcely two weeks after the regiment had entered the field 
the project of a regimental newspaper was launched. The line 
was long and thin, longer and thinner than any regiment's line in 



LITERATURE OF THE REGIMENT 349 

history; 15 scattered companies to weld into a regimental whole 
and to imbue with one idea. The seeds of organization conscious- 
ness and unity had been sown at Lambert Farm and Peekskill in 
mobilization days. Now the need was for something to nourish 
the new growth and carry on the work of cohesion. What medium 
better than a paper that would tell the man at Atwood what his 
comrades of Cold Spring and Pleasantville were doing.? What 
better than an organ of Impregnable Line propaganda? What 
more satisfactory than something in which the men of the regi- 
ment by the mere telling of their own work and the reading of the 
work of others could give and get new ideas tending to make that 
work nearer perfect.? It would be for the benefit of the men, the 
officers and the regiment as a whole. 

Following a conference with Major Lamb and other staff officers, 
Colonel Rose directed the Adjutant, a former newspaper man on 
the staff of the UHca Daily Press, to secure estimates on the pub- 
lication. Inquiries both by letter and person were made from 
several papers in the vicinity of Croton Lake, and finally at 
Yonkers. And it is at this point that Daniel F. Nolan, well known 
in Westchester County politics and as the publisher of the 
Yonkers Daily News for many years, enters the history of the 
regiment. 

It is a difficult matter for any member of the old Watchdog 
staff to discuss Dan Nolan without an insane desire to throw up 
his hat and yell. Never was a better friend of the First Provisional 
than this keen, jolly, young veteran of the political wars of West- 
chester; full of wise and happy counsels, patient, boosting, sym- 
pathetic and appreciative. Destiny had ordained that Daniel 
F. Nolan was to publish The Watchdog for the First Provisional 
Regiment, and that was all there was to it. The situation was 
explained to him and he submitted figures. He had the establish- 
ment and his figures were lower. The job went to him. It is 
certain that he never made a cent from the publication of The 
Watchdog, to say nothing of the way in which he was obliged to 
wait for his money. But to all intents and purposes the plant 
was a Watchdog plant from the time a member of the staff entered 
the place; there was nothing that could not be done to make the 
paper a typographical success. 

The Adjutant, as editor, was given full control of the paper's 
policies and contents under the general though not specific direc- 
tion of the Commanding Officer. Quartermaster-Sergt. James F. 
Murray, formerly of the New York American^ was made assistant 
editor, and Sergt. Joseph Chase, of the V. C. A., who had made 
some sketches for The Waterwagon, a four-page leaflet published 



3SO H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

by the V. C. A. while on the line, accepted the post of "Art 
Editor." The Watchdog was fortunate in its art department. As 
a cartoonist of national fame and a portrait-painter of considerable 
reputation, Sergeant Chase meant much to the success of the 
paper in its earliest days, and, though an extremely busy man, he 
never failed in later times to answer a call for a sketch. 

To Capt. Howland Pell were consigned the finances of the pub- 
lication. Later they passed to Lieut. John Towner, who remained 
the treasurer and business manager until the termination of The 
Watchdog's official life. 

A circular to the various organizations on the line of the regi- 
ment advised them of the impending issue of a regimental news- 
paper and called for a roster of the men of their commands who 
made up the original First Provisional Regiment. Each com- 
pany commander was asked to designate a correspondent to 
represent his unit, or to act in that capacity himself, with the former 
condition preferred. It was the determination of Colonel Rose 
to make it a paper of, for and by the men, and so it was determined 
that the men should name it. 

Copy for the first issue was received at Croton Lake from prac- 
tically every camp along the line, and was there edited and put 
in shape for the linotype. Practically a week and a half was re- 
quired to get ready for the first issue. Type faces had to be 
selected and head styles decided on. The general form of make-up 
was to be determined, and since the pages were to be full news- 
paper size, the make-up had to conform to the generally accepted 
standards of journalism. 

At 1 1. 10 o'clock on the morning of the 22nd of September, 1917, 
a low grumble of machinery arose in the basement of the Daily 
News building in Main Street, Yonkers, and then the steady, 
bass "Sdung! Sdang!" of a bed-press in motion told that the first 
issue of the nameless paper was on its way. 

Shortly after 12 o'clock two cars laden with papers headed out 
of Yonkers, one to New York City to deliver the first issue to the 
armories of troops that had been on the line but had returned to 
home station, and the other northward along the line, delivering 
the bundles at the camps and arriving at Regimental Headquarters 
about 3.30 o'clock on a sunny, windy afternoon. There the paper- 
car met Col. J. Weston Myers, the First Provisional's very good 
friend, and he was among the first to say kind things about the 
regiment's newest child. 

Battery C, at Nelsonville, was reached at 7.30 o'clock, and the 
paper-car crossed the ferry at Beacon, stopped at Newburgh for 
mess, and then pushed on up the line with warm greetings from 



LITERATURE OF THE REGIMENT 



351 



F of the loth at Vail's Gate, from the "Bedouin Light'' at Camp 
Alaska at the intersection of the Aqueduct and the Walden trolley 
line, and then at Battalion Headquarters, where Lieut. Bechtol 
was routed out to act as guide. 

What with a quarter-mile chase of a jack-rabbit on a mountain 
road near the Troop B camp, and sleepy though hearty welcome 
at the Peak and Atwood, it was a merry run. Lieut. Richards 
and Lieut. Snowden greeted the paper at the top of the line just 
as a rosy Sunday morning broke over the eastern mountain peaks 
in gorgeous sunrise. 

The reception of that first issue by the men on the line proved 
the wisdom of Colonel Rose in the establishment of the regimental 
newspaper. It also proved that the composition was about what 
would appeal to the men. The first number contained a story of 
the regiment's beginnings and introduction of the paper itself 
on the front page, together with a serious cartoon by Chase, en- 
titled, "A Man's Job," which is elsewhere reproduced. With a 
roster of the original regiment, stories from the line, a column of 
more or less humorous chit-chat, entitled, "Column of Squads," 
and very little editorial, the first issue made an original impression 
of merit. It was in no way comparable to some of those that fol- 
lowed it. As a matter of fact, it steadily improved in tone and 
contents up to the time of its discontinuation, 36 weeks later. 

Its mission was described on its first page in this fashion: 



"Approximately six weeks from 
the date on which the First Pro- 
visional Regiment assumed respon- 
sibility for the water supply of 
the City of New York, the regi- 
mental newspaper makes its initial 
bow, without apology or fear, and 
certain of its mission and wel- 
come. 

"Its mission has been outlined 
by Colonel Rose in his announce- 
ment of its forthcoming — 'a paper 
for the man on the post.* It is to 
link together the northernmost and 
southernmost ends of the line, to 
act as a medium of expression for 
the men of the First Provisional, 
and to bring to them each week 
something worth while from the 
regiment and the outside world. 



"It is a paper for the enlisted 
man * * * Its object is to bring help 
and happiness to the men of the 
First Provisional, to bring them 
the things they want and to give 
them a place where they can give 
expression to their ideas. 

**It will not be a funny sheet. 

"It will not be a tract. 

"It will not dabble in politics. 

"It will carry no advertising. 

"It will have little editorial. 

"It will be open to the men of 
the First Provisional Regiment from 
Ashokan Dam to Hillview, and only 
the contributions from the rank and 
file will assure the success of this 
weekly. 

"Its mission is serious, but not 
solemn; sober, but not sad." 



352 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

This gives briefly the policy of the paper. From the first it had 
been determined that any touch of commerciaHsm would impair 
its usefulness, and for that reason advertising was omitted. That 
was a mistake, although it could not be seen at that time. The 
immutable law of the print world, that it takes a box-office to 
keep a newspaper going, cannot be disregarded by even a soldiers* 
paper. On the face of the figures then available, the paper would 
just clear itself. It never did. But of its financial struggle more 
will be told later. 

The second issue of the paper marked the end of Sergeant Mur- 
ray's services as assistant editor, when he was compelled to return 
to home station because of illness. Second Lieut. Avery E. Lord, 
of Utica, a former newspaper associate of the editor, was made 
assistant editor of The Watchdog, and from the first was largely 
responsible for the success of the paper. 

Suggested names for the publication poured in on each mail 
from the men on the line and from civilians who had read in the 
daily papers that a prize of $25 was offered for a name for the 
nameless organ. But when the contest board, composed of a 
delegate from each unit on the line, met at Regimental Headquar- 
ters on the afternoon and evening of Friday, Oct. 12th, to select 
a name and make award, none of the names was found suitable. 
Such titles as "The Guard" and "The Sentinel" met with favor, 
but were without the individual character the board wanted. 

Perhaps the most humorous name submitted was, "The New 
York Guard Dam News." No one appreciated just how good it 
was until it was read aloud before the board. But, as Colonel 
Rose pointed out in his address to the board at the conclusion of 
its first deliberations, the paper was not a funny sheet and a 
humorous name would not do. So the board adjourned until 
Oct. 30th, calling on the regiment for more names. 

The contest board, elected by each unit, consisted of the fol- 
lowing: Chairman, Corp. C. M. Hynes, of the Sanitary Squad, 
Co. A, 69th Inf., stationed at Van Cortlandtville; Secretary, 
1st Sergt. Mark Rosenthal, of Co. F, loth Inf., stationed at 
Vail's Gate; Private Peter Boyle, of Co. A, 12th Inf., stationed at 
Millwood; Private Ray Osterhout, of Battery C, ist Field Artil- 
lery, stationed at Cold Spring; Sergt. Bruce Miller, of Co. F, 
1st Inf., stationed at Elmsford; Corp. Joseph W. Greinger, Jr., of 
Battery A, ist Field Artillery, stationed at Kensico dam; Sergt. 
Melville Johnson, of Co. G, ist Inf., stationed at Regimental 
Headquarters; ist Sergt. Andrew B. Suttle, of Co. H, ist Inf., 
stationed at Stone Ridge; ist Sergt. Earl Richards, of Co. A, ist 
Inf., stationed at Atwood; Sergt. Allan P. Carpenter, of Troop G, 



LITERATURE OF THE REGIMENT 353 

1st Cavalry, stationed at St. Elmo; Sergt. Patrick J. Bradley, of 
Co. B, 69th Inf., stationed at Pleasantville; ist Sergt. Paul 
Poveromo of the 4th Co., 9th Coast Artillery, stationed at Camp 
Byrne, near Peekskill; Corp. H. W. Haines, of Co. I, ist Inf., 
stationed at Gardiner; Private Jeremiah Whalen, of Co. B, ist 
Inf., stationed at Davis Corners; Corp. Charles T. Terry, of 
Troop B, 1st Cavalry, stationed at New Paltz; ist Sergt. John A. 
Coulter, of Battery B, ist Field Artillery, stationed at Tuckahoe 
road and the Aqueduct; Corp. Charles H. Smith, of Battery D, 
1st Field Artillery, stationed at Ardsley. 

When the contest board again assembled at Regimental Head- 
quarters on the 30th, however, no names had been submitted 
which met with its full approval, and using its prerogative, the 
board decided on The Watchdog as the most suitable name for 
the nameless paper. An extract from the written report of the 
contest board, signed by its various members, reads as follows: 

" * * * at a meeting of the Board, held Oct. 30th, the fol- 
lowing name was unanimously selected by the Board as 
the most appropriate name for the Regimental Paper 

The Watchdog 

"Motion made that the name of the paper being the 
suggestion of the Contest Board, the prize of ^25.00 be 
donated to the Regimental Paper by the members of the 
Contest Board. Carried." 

How well the name suited the paper and the spirit of the regiment 
it represented was described by the leading editorial of the suc- 
ceeding issue, which said in part: 

"Our jaws are wide and strong, our teeth are long; our 
tail is stubby and our strong legs bow away from the enor- 
mous chest that falls away beneath the undershot jaw, pen- 
dulous lip and wrinkled face. We are afraid of nothing. 
We will tackle anything. When the odds are against us 
we just hang on and chew, chew, chew, ever a little 
deeper and a little deeper, until we hit something vital." 

This was prophecy pure and simple, although the writer did 
not know it. It told of what actually happened to the regiment 
in later days when all the odds were against it, and when only the 
bulldog tenacity of the Commanding Officer took it through to 
victory. 



354 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

The first page of that first issue under the new name carried 
a cartoon by Chase of an enormous bulldog poised in mid-jump 
before the door of his kennel, which bore the legend, "First Pro- 
visional Regiment," and the entire cartoon bore the caption, 
"Well! Here We Are!" 

From this time the way of The Watchdog was that of the average 
paper of armed forces in the field. It expanded its field to the 
Second Provisional, and Major George J. Winslow, who later 
commanded that organization, was made associate editor. Later 
the Adjutant-General of the State ordered copies of the paper 
sent to each of the armories in New York City weekly for the pur- 
pose of interesting men at home station in the work on the Aque- 
duct. 

The Watchdog carried stated departments which altered very 
little from the time of its organization until the date on which 
it ceased publication. The first page was devoted to leading news 
stories of the week, affecting the Guard generally or the troops 
in the field particularly, with generally a good photograph illus- 
trative of the work or news, and a column, which in tabloid form 
gave to the men of the isolated outposts the news of the world's 
events under the caption "The Week in the World." Later the 
activities of the American troops abroad were chronicled in a 
similar column, entitled, "With the Boys in France." 

The second page was devoted to editorials on current topics, the 
Column of Squads, which was open to every one, and where much 
of the regimental verse of the better sort appeared, a question-and- 
answer department on drill regulations, conducted by Major W. L. 
Hodges, and an official section containing extracts from the various 
A. G. orders affecting the First and Second Provisional Regiments, 
General A. G. Orders not too long to print, and the Special and 
General Orders and circulars of the regiment. 

With a correspondent in every camp on the line the third page 
and a portion of the fourth were devoted to the week's news from 
the camps, under the general heading, "Along the Line." This 
feature grew to large proportions after a while and often threat- 
ened the composition of the paper. Photographs, verses, and wit 
from the men, in addition to the general news, were encouraged. 

On the fourth page there was run serially in the early days an 
illustrated description of the Aqueduct and its structure, that the 
men on the work might know something of the why of the structure 
that they were guarding. This was followed by an illustrated serial 
on the construction and use of the Barge Canal, for the benefit 
of the men in the Second Provisional. The fourth page was re- 
served for feature stories, and, when those were not available, was 



LITERATURE OF THE REGIMENT 355 

used for general topics and for the "run-over" from the third 
page, which after a while became inevitable as the camp corres- 
pondence grew. 

Since the bulk of the editors' work had to be done after hours, 
there was much night labor attached to the preparation of The 
Watchdog copy each week. The first batch of copy went to the 
printer on Tuesday or Wednesday, and on Thursday or Friday 
one of the editors went down to Yonkers to read proof, head up 
the copy and prepare for make-up. At various times the paper 
was printed on Friday night or on Saturday, according to the 
disposition of other work at the plant of the Daily News. 

Special-feature editions were published at Thanksgiving, New- 
Year's, and on the anniversary of the occupation of the Aqueduct 
by armed forces in February, 1917. A special number was also 
printed for New York Guard Day, in the Liberty Loan Drive, 
and throughout its history The Watchdog printed as special fea- 
tures many things that prepared the minds of the men on the 
line for new jobs to be undertaken or new conditions to be met. 

For instance, the men on the line were interested in the forth- 
coming winter barracks by an entire page of description and illus- 
tration, which secured their attention and prepared their minds 
for the erection of the sectional houses. The workings of the 
Guard Cards system and the telephone system were explained 
to the regiment through the medium of The Watchdog and popu- 
larized to such an extent that when the innovations came the men 
knew exactly how to handle them. The same was true of the 
Check-roll Call. And The Watchdog, from the first, sustained, 
while there was hope, the idea that sooner or later federalization 
might come to the regiment. 

Always working from the point of view of the man on the line, 
the editors endeavored to answer humorously or seriously the 
scores of introspective questions which might occur to the man 
on post who had so much time to think and ponder in his long 
tours of guard duty. This had a decided eflPect in checking rest- 
lessness. By the pubHcation of the battalion ratings and editorial 
comment on the winners of each month's efficiency contest, the 
paper inspired the men of the regiment to greater endeavor. 

The Watchdog fostered esprit de corps, and through the long 
winter months helped to hold together the regimental conscious- 
ness so necessary to a proper performance of duty. And ever it 
preached the importance of the work in which the First Provisional 
Regiment was engaged. 

How valuable the Commanding Officer considered it as a regi- 
mental asset may be gathered from the fact that when financial 



3s6 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

difficulties began to press the paper in January, 1918, he laid the 
matter before the Red Cross of Westchester County, and in a 
letter to Robert E. Willis pointed out the value of the publication 
to the organization. 

When the publication date of January 19th had been reached, the 
editors determined that The Watchdog must stand or fall on a 
radical move. The financial situation was serious and only im- 
mediate help from the regiment and the outside world could 
warrant continuance of publication. So in the issue of the 19th 
column rules were turned and the paper appeared in heavy 
mourning. "The Last Growl," three columns wide and in big 
type on the first page, told the story in this fashion: 

"With teeth bared, fighting every inch of the way, The Watchdog 
has been forced down and down for the last few weeks, until to-day we 
turn our column rules in mourning, for this may be the last growl. 

*'This paper is in debt — not badly, but still in debt, and running under 
a weekly deficit. When the books are balanced we will be able to just 
about pay what we owe, but we will be unable to refund. 

"There is to be no passing the hat. When The Watchdog was started 
it was with the belief that the men of the New York Guard on service 
in the field would support it, and this belief has been sustained up to a 
certain point. 

"But it is on that certain point that we stick. The support has not 
been sufficiently wide-spread to turn the trick. 

"Early in the game we told our needs — 1,000 subscriptions at ^5 apiece 
outside the line would help us make good. We have less than 150 such. 

"Still we have plugged on, hoping that sooner or later the value of 
our little four-page paper would make itself apparent, and that the 
relief would come. 

FROM THE FIRST 

"It was a fair day when we made our first appearance, a beautiful, 
sunshiny fall day, with all the landscape gold and scarlet, air keen and 
clean, and from 'Shokan to Hillview a line of 1,200 men waiting for the 
first number of the regimental paper that was nameless. 

"To-day the skies are gray, and from 'Shokan to Hillview the snow Hes 
deep, shutting in from the outside world the men who are standing guard 
over the vitals of a great city. 

"Now they need the binding influence of The Watchdog more than 
ever — now the atmosphere throughout the State, thick with rumors and 
alarms, needs the steadying semi-ofiicial influence more than ever before. 
BUT— 

"They tell us that every dog has his day. 

"What have we done in our day? 

"We have tried to make men happy; to bring the men of the Guard 



LITERATURE OF THE REGIMENT 357 

closer together, and closer to the men of the National Army and the 
Federalized National Guard through our exchanges. 

"We have tried to explain the work of the man who must stay on 'the 
job of no renown/ because there is no one else who will do it. 

"It has been our effort to visualize for the people of the State of New 
York the life of the men of the First and the Second Provisional Regiments, 
their work, their play, their joys and their sorrows; to tell the story of 
one big phase of this war of wars that does not come to the ready notice 
of the man who reads as he runs. 

HELPS THE MEN 

"Our effort has been to stimulate interest in the New York Guard and 
its work, and to make all men feel that they have some niche, no matter 
how small it may be, in the winning of this war. 

"We have preached the gospel of a State Militant and a State Vigilant, 
from the beginning. 

"Perhaps there is no further need for this rough, aggressive, vigilant 
Watchdog. Perhaps its work is finished. If so, this is the last growl. 

"Take note that it is not a grumble. If it is the last growl, it is the 
same grunty gurgle that rises in the throat of the Fighting Beast before 
the life goes out with a kick and a shudder. We are fighting to a finish, 
friends of ours. 

"In the week that is to come our fate will be settled, and you, helping, 
or watching from the side-lines as the case may be, will know the result 
only when we emerge from the m^lee — or fail to emerge. 

"Our jaws are strong, and our teeth are long, but we are lean — very 
lean and very gaunt. This may be the last growl." 

Came an immediate protest from the men on the line against 
suspension and an order from the Commanding Officer to con- 
tinue for another two v^eeks, while the Red Cross agencies busied 
themselves in an effort to ascertain what could be done. 

The issue of January 26th carried a cartoon by Chase repre- 
senting a lean, broken-down bulldog propped against the door of 
his kennel, one eye swollen, shut, and covered with scars, with the 
caption, "When a Feller Needs a Friend." And underneath the 
picture the lines: 

" Behold the Watchdog. 

"Not the doughty dancing animal of old, but the Watchdog as he is 
to-day, hungry, lean and hard hit. 

"Gentlemen, he needs food. He needs lots of it in a hurry, or in the 
words of our childhood, 'there ain't going <o be no Watchdog.*" 

To The Watchdog in its hour of need rallied the men and officers 
of the 3rd Battalion with a comfortable donation that helped tide 
things over until the Red Cross could do something. The sub- 



3S8 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

scription was headed by Captain Harte, the battalion commander, 
for the officers, and by Sergeant-Major Boulee of the 3d Bat- 
talion headquarters, for the enlisted men. And so The Watchdog 
dragged on for a few weeks more, depending on the efforts of the 
Red Cross. 

Mr. Willis had aroused the interest of Mrs. Roberts Walker, 
of Scarsdale, in The Watchdog situation, and she, with the per- 
mission of the National Organization, went about the matter of 
securing subscriptions for the paper through the various Red Cross 
units in Westchester County. But this only succeeded partially 
and it finally became apparent that the only way to insure the 
continued life of the paper was to capitalize it. With advertising 
budgets of all the big advertising concerns to which she had access 
closed for the fiscal year, it was impossible to secure paid adver- 
tising, and so she turned her attention to getting out-and-out 
donations for the work. 

What a hard struggle it was for her to handle this matter single- 
handed only she could tell. Because of their official position the 
officers of the regiment could do nothing to help. On her efforts 
alone and the sympathy and appreciation of those to whom she 
appealed depended the outcome. 

It was a battle, but in early June she had secured approximately 
^i,5CX) and more pledged. The Watchdog was an assured fact. 

Colonel Rose had been taken ill in May, and under the almost 
direct control of the Commanding General many regimental 
policies had been altered in the First Provisional. On June 7th 
The Watchdog was verbally ordered discontinued by General Kemp 
in a conversation with the Acting Lieutenant-Colonel and the 
Adjutant at Millwood. 

The paper, which had at that time issued 37 numbers, was 
never revived. Plans for continuance of its publication were 
being formed by Colonel Rose at the time when ,the signing of the 
armistice told the impending end of the regiment's services. All 
its bills were eventually paid. 

With cuts and mailing costs under a second-class permit the 
weekly cost of the publication was approximately $85, although 
special numbers ran to a larger figure. From the first it main- 
tained the size and general style of make-up that it assumed at 
the beginning of its career. Its extermination came at a time 
when the regiment needed it most and was unfortunate for the 
men of the regiment, inasmuch as it was used as a medium for 
teaching the many new men entering the field the traditions of the 
line and the standards of the organization of which they were a 
part. The ostensible reason given for its discontinuation was that 



LITERATURE OF THE REGIMENT 359 

its publication required too much of the time of the officers on 
its editorial staff and interfered with their duties. 

Two other publications appeared on the Hne of the First Pro- 
visional during the regiment's service in the field, the first being 
The Waterwagon^ published by the V. C. A., which has hitherto 
been referred to, and the last. The Reveille, a one-page type- 
written effort by the men of Company I, which was issued daily 
during May and June at the Company I post, and which contained 
camp witticisms and verses. 

Now turn to the actual literary product of the regiment, made 
possible and stimulated by these various mediums: 

VERSE 

The first verse of the line emanated from the men of the V. C. 
A. and was printed in The Waterwagon, and, later, some of the 
best of it in a bound volume entitled. Versified Adventures of the 
V. C. A.., which was written by Earl H. Emmons, of the 6th Bat- 
tery, and published by Ralph S. Dunne, of 11 East 36th Street, 
New York City, with a foreword by Major W. L. Hodges, of the 
First Provisional. It is with the permission of the author and 
publisher that some of the verses are herewith reproduced: 

The first, entitled, "The Minute Men of To-Day," tells the 
story of the V. C. A. 

"They mustered at eight in the morning, 
The men of the Veteran Corps, 
And upheld the fame 
Of their ancestors' name, 

The brave Minute Men of yore. 

"The doctor relinquished his practice; 

The lawyer stopped short on his case; 
The scribe dropped his pen; 
The stage gave its men; 

The artist stepped up into place. 

"The preacher came down from his pulpit; 
The banker came forth from his bank; 
While each craft and mart 
Gave a generous part 

Of its best to the file and the rank. 

"And so they went into the service, 

The men of the V. C. of A., 
Upholding the Corps 
As their sires did before — 

They're the Minute Men of To-day!" 



36o H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

General Orders of a sentry, versified, is another worth reading: 

**Go take thy post and everything in view 

And mark thou dost not stub thy clumsy toe, 
But walk twelve hours, if need be, like John Drew, 
And note each moving leaf and cockroach crow. 

"Repeat each word thy brother sentry speaks, 
E'en tho he says the sergeant is a bum; 
And if relief come not for seven weeks, 

Thou must not leave until thy relief hast come. 

"Take not an order from a living man, 

Except some scores of non-coms and C. 0/s; 
But guard thy talk, as does the cautious clam, 
And sound alarm each time a fire-fly glows. 

"Allow no one within thy range of sight 
To spit or otherwise off'end thy beat; 
And call the corporal each hour of night, 
For his remarks to thee will be so sweet. 

"Allow not even Time or Tide pass thee 
Without authority, for that's thy rule. 
If thou dost all of this then thou wilt be 
A sentry, and what's more, a blasted fool." 

And here, in verse, is the story of an incident repeated on the 
Aqueduct many times in the course of the First Provisional's 
career: 

"The night was black as a ten-foot stack 
Of cats of the darkest hue; 
The sentry stood in a Stygian wood 
At Outpost Number Two. 

"A sound quite near struck on his ear; 
He turned in quick alarm. 
And, 'Halt! Who's there?* rang on the air 
As the sentry ported arm. 

"Then, as a breeze blew thru the trees, 
The guard's brave spirit sunk; 
As to his nose the odor rose 
Of essence a la skunk. 



LITERATURE OF THE REGIMENT 361 

"He took a chance and called, 'Advance, 
Sir Skunk, you're recognized'; 
The puzzled cat stopped short at that 
And showed he was surprised. 

"Then on he went and the night was rent 
With smells and howls of grief; 
Till hellity bent from his khaki tent 
Came the Corporal with relief. 

"Now a sentry grieves in a suit of leaves 
And swears till the air is blue; 
While beneath the sod where the daisies nod 
Lie his clothes at Outpost Two." 

The difficulties of the conscientious soldier in New York City 
at any time during the great war are told in Emmons' "Love's 
Labor Lost." 

"Up at Kensico a rookie got a furlough for a day 
And he caught the train to Gotham to parade along Broadway; 
Now the town was full of captains from a recent Plattsburg class, 
And the rook saluted faithfully each one he chanced to pass. 
For his sergeant was particular to pound this lesson in: 
That he must salute all officers to show his discipline. 
So the rook was doing noble, tho his arm was somewhat taxed, 
Till he came to Thirty-fourth Street, when he stopped dead in his tracks. 
For a figure so resplendent came before his startled gaze 
That his eyes stuck out like onions and he stood in great amaze. 
Then this kingly one came near him and his heart turned cold as ice. 
But he knew he must do something, so the rook saluted twice; 
Then he swore and hit a bulldog and he kicked a rubbish-can, 
For he found that he'd saluted Macy's elevator man." 

And the attitude of the average rank and file toward the Platts- 
burg graduate in those early days is told merrily, but without 
sting, in: 

"You can always tell a barber 

By the way he combs his hair; 
You can tell a taxi-driver 

When you hear him start to swear. 

"You can always tell a baker 

When he speaks of coin as * dough,' 
And a hundred others you can tell 
By little traits you know. 



362 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

"You can tell a plumber by his pipes, 
A cobbler 's always 'last/ 
While doctors, lawyers, merchants. 
You can pick them quick and fast. 

"You can even tell a grafter 
By his a la modish touch; 
You can tell a danged Plattsburger — but 
You cannot tell him much." 



The verses that from time to time appeared in The Watchdog, 
largely in the Column of Squads, reflected almost every phase of 
regimental life. The spirit of the allied arms of infantry, cavalry, 
coast and light artillery all forming the composite regiment, was 
best told by some verses that appeared in the early part of The 
Watchdog's history under the caption: 



FACTS 



"Seems like years and years ago 
When we joined the Battery, 
We had visions of our guns 
Talking to The Brute at sea. 



We had hopes of mighty deeds 
In the battles overseas. 

Now we're over water, hut 
Over Crotoriy if you please. 



"Maybe 'tis an'age or so 

Since we joined that dashing troop 
That has never had a horse. 
Never learned a Uhlan coup. 



^Once we dreamed of charge and shock 

In the crazy hell of fight. 
Now we're charged with this here thing: 

* Guard that siphon-house to-night!' 



"Possibly an aeon's lapsed 

Since we took the Springfield oath. 
Now weVe learned to use a *Krag,' 
Or a 'Flint,' or maybe both. 



"Horse and foot and guns we melt 
To the service, day and night. 
Nothing goes but I. D. R. 
We're provisional, all right." 




upper — Sergt. Joseph C. Chase, who painted the Peace Conference 
for. the United States government, sketching Captain Westcott for The 
Watzhdog. Lower — Debut of the regimental song, "The Good Old N. 
Y. G.," in the officers' mess-hall, Croton Lake headquarters. 



J)edtc^i:-<:d io ihe f^' /=i 



oyi sions. 



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THE GOOD OLD ¥.Y. G 



Wurds a/^d music 



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CopyTught MCnXVI I by 4l<fut.<iaf,nl.eHAs.A. Clinton V. C • A , 

The First Provisional Regiment March 



rV fo clri'nk^ Thai is l>rdi>e f i/ri/iM. . ^na io 6ec/>e in 'cause i/'s ouef . 
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y/7 ihe 




Firsf f^o- oi- scoff - a/ Tfecr - 



icr - I . men/ Of the Good Old. N. i/l O. , O/j M^ Gi . 




By Major Charles A. Clinton 




upper — Tents of the vintage of '98 doing duty in the snow of the 
early 191 7 winter. Left center — One of the "Valley Forge" overcoats. 
Right — Winter equipment (1918), with First Provisional Regiment Cap. 
Lower — Getting ready for inspection. 



LITERATURE OF THE REGIMENT 363 

With a characteristic touch of the satirical, Capt. Theodore 
T. Lane, in the early days, wrote some "Instructions to Sentries," 
which reflect indirectly the troubles of the green man on the line: 

I 

"When you talk to officers 
Hold your gun at poit; 
When you talk to non-coms. 
Say, 'Hello, old Sport!' 

II 

"If a cow attacks you 

Don't let on you're green; 
Throw your rifle at it 
And hit it on the bean. 

Ill 

"If you're bored on duty, 
Don't know what to do. 
Call the Sergeant of the Guard, 
He will talk to you. 

IV 

"If a stranger hails you. 
Stops awhile and chats; 
Jab your bay'net forward 
And jab him in the slats. 



"If a bush alarms you 
In the moonlight fair. 
Don't waste ammunition. 
Run away from there. 

VI 

"If your captain's haughty. 
Won't play cards with you, 
Call upon the Colonel 

And see what he will do." 



The heavy schedule of calisthenics developed by Colonel Rose 
from adaptations of the exercises of the French and British 
schools brought forth from Sergeant-Major Ralph L. Rodney: 
24 



364 H-A-L-TT!— WHA-ZAA? 

"THE MORNING AFTER THE NIGHT BEFORE! 

"Awake with the sounds of the bugle and drum, with not the desire to 

dress. 
Sprang the man from his cot. Only habit and haste could conquer 

his grievous distress. 
At five in the morning he laid him to sleep; at six in the morning he rose 
To swear at the bugle, to swear at the drum, and to swear as he pulled 

on his clothes. 

"Quite different this from the days long gone by, when no need of a 

physical drill 
At reveille's sound brought him out with a bound, feeling miserable, 

groggy and chill. 
His sore, stiffened arms and his sore, stiffened legs and his utterly worn, 

wearied brain 
Could hardly respond to the cutting command, 'Arms — Raise! Arms 

— Down! Once again!* 

"And his back! Oh, that back! When he bent to the ground, with his 

fingers just touching his toes; 
And his legs! Oh, those legs! When he slipped in the mud and lit 

on the end of his nose. 
Ye gods! what a fool. For a slip of a girl, with a smile that was vague 

and passe, 
But fools will be fools to the end of the world, and another is born every 

day!" 

During the greater part of 1917 and a portion of 1918 the Post 
Road through Tarrytown v^as in course of repair, to the constant 
detriment of regimental transportation obliged to go over it. 
This resulted in: 

"TARRY? YEP! 

{Respectfully dedicated to the busted springs in the Transportation Depart- 
ment of the First Provisional Regiment, N. Y. G.) 

"When Rip Van Winkle went to sleep 

Upon the mountain-side, 
There flourished then a hamlet where 

The Hudson River's wide; 
The Dutchmen called it Tarwe-Town, 

Because its crop was wheat; 
But now they call it Tarrytown, 

Because of one long street. 



Cho: 



Cho: 



LITERATURE OF THE REGIMENT 365 



^Now Tarrytown is Tarrytown 

From Ossining 'way through 
To old Dobbs Ferry. If you speed 

You will break yourself in two. 
You may try to haste in Hastings, 

Or cut through at Getty Square, 
But tarry ye in Tarrytown; 

They're building highway there. 

"When Ichabod of flapping arms 

Rode down the Graveyard Hill 
And beat the Hessian by a length 

Across the Spookum Kill, 
He must have busted up the road 

From there to where he quit, 
The other side of Tarrytown, 

And now they're fixing it." 



Clad in line jargon, idiom and slang, but going straight to the 
heart of the men by its very language, "The Job" was one of the 
most telling things ever published in The Watchdog from the 
standpoint of influence on the man on the post. It represented 
the viewpoint of the rookie, with all its unreasonable selfishness, 
and the reply of the veteran, with all of the allusions and refer- 
ences of other days dear to the hearts of the men that had served 
since the beginning. It is herewith reproduced in full as one of 
the best of the serious things with a serious mission well camou- 
flaged: 

"THE JOB 
The Rookie Speaks 

"*Now it's half-past one on a frosty night. 
And it's cold as cold can be; 
Stars overhead, and the moon is bright, 
But what do they mean to me? 

"'For they've dumped me down on a blooming post. 
Where it's dark and lone and drear; 
It's nice in camp where the sergeant is, 
But it's damn poor stuff* out here. 

"*Now my girl she's home and it's warm there, too. 
And it's nice as nice can be; 
But she may be talking to Billy or Hugh 
And not think a thing of me. 



366 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

"'For they've put me into a uniform, 
And it's fine all right, all right; 
I'm strong for the life of a soldier, sure; 
But ]'m sick of it to-night. 



***And I want to go where the bright lights are, 
Where there's fun and grub and noise; 
But I'm stuck to a blooming siphon-house 
Instead of out with the boys. 

"*For the sergeant he up and put me here. 
And he says, "Now hold that down"; 
But I don't want to stay, and I'm going away; 
Come on, and we'll go to town.* 



The Veteran Speaks 

***You make me sick with your yell and kick. 

You're a hell of a man, you are; 
You're a good-for-nothing sniveling kid. 
You just made a damn fine speech, you did; 
You've fixed yourself for a juicy skid, 

You've just went too darned far. 

"*You talk of cold; well, wait till you hold 

Your gun in an ice-caked mitt; 
The job's all right if your mind is set 
And your toes turn out; but you can bet 
They'll be turned right up in the slush and wet 

If you even whisper, "quit." 



«( 



You're tired out! Well, I gotta shout 

At the talk of the likes of you. 
You've got a cot; you get grub that's hot; 
And you may believe it, and maybe not. 
But it's gospel truth. Kid, you bet you got 
Lot's more than some folks I knew. 



"You never ate from a wash-bowl plate, 

Nor slept on a Junior cot; 
You never done with one blanket — one! 
We did, my boy, and we called it fun. 
And I'll kick the first darned son-of-a-gun 

That hollers he don't know what. 



LITERATURE OF THE REGIMENT 367 

*You wash your face — You're a plum disgrace, 

Your kind — You a soldier? You? 
Some time next year when the pears is ripe 
You'll be something more than a slab of tripe; 
You spoil our record, you little snipe, 

And I'll lam you, P. D. Q. 



"'You cut and run for a bunch of fun — 
And maybe — My God! you pup! 
You'd shoot the work of a thousand men 
For a dame and dance and some eats, and then- 
If you ever open your head again 
Be damned, but I'll eatcha up!"* 



So much for the verses that reflected the work of the Hne. 
Fragments of others may be found, as various chapter headings 
or quoted here and there throughout this work. There were also 
one or two things of general nature that were produced by men 
of the First Provisional Regiment and that are worth reproduc- 
tion as samples of real literary worth and the result of deep 
thought. 

The first is by Ray Yngstrom, of Company C of the 23rd In- 
fantry, attached first to Company E and later to Regimental 
Headquarters. Yngstrom wrote his "Canvas" during the winter 
of 19 1 7. Later he revised it and it appears as revised: 

"THE CANVAS 

"If all our thoughts were painted on a canvas. 

And hung where every one could plainly see. 
Would we be proud to show them to the stranger? 

No. What a horrid picture it would be. 
Would there be thoughts to help our weaker brother 

Who draws a losing hand in life's sad game? 
Would there be thoughts that break the heart of mother? 

Would there be thoughts that bring disgrace and shame? 
Would there be thoughts to help the little children 

Who grind and toil for us through all the years? 
And do our thoughts go back to their poor mothers. 

Whose eyes are often red from bitter tears? 
Would there be thoughts of greed and measly gaming? 

And thoughts to push all others to one side. 
And plans to better self by crooked scheming? 

Would there be thoughts that we would rather hide? 






368 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

Would there be thoughts, straight, pure, and on the level? 

Would there be thoughts all red with stains of sin? 
Would there be thoughts to serve but one, the Devil? 

(Or does a guilty conscience woik within?) 
Would there be thoughts that bring us nearer Heaven? 

And thoughts that bring us nearer to our God? 
And thoughts that we would like to leave to others 

When we are laid at rest beneath the sod?" 



It v^as one of the most remarkable contributions to the written 
sum total of the First Provisionars literary effort, speaking of 
deep introspection, self-searching, and withal a wonderful spirit. 
Yngstrom wrote others, including, "Whiskey," a soliloquy by 
John Barleycorn, but though all were virile and convincing, none 
approached *'The Canvas'' for finish and originality. 

Early in the summer of 1918 there appeared in The Watchdog 
some verses that attracted considerable attention outside the line. 
Written by one of the members of the Adjutant's office, they be- 
spoke the doctrine of the regiment: 

"FULL TILT 

"How do you live? 

Do you live like a worm? 

Just an occasional wiggle and squirm? 

Better be dead, man, if that's how you're built! 

Live every minute, and live at full tilt! 

"How do you work? 

Do you work for the gain? 

Or for the job, and an end to attain? 

In the broad stream of success or the silt 

Left by the river — Work — Work at full tilt! 

**How do you fight? 

Do you fight in the dark? 
Craftily, crookedly? Man, leave your mark! 
Fight like the devil! The knife to the hilt! 
Life is a battle. Go to it — full tilt!" 



SONG 

There was but one song of the First Provisional Regiment, 
aside from the parodies which from time to time appeared, that 
was ever set to music. This was the "Regimental March" by Lieut. 



LITERATURE OF THE REGIMENT 369 

(now Major) Charles A. Clinton, of the 9th C. A. C, who served 
with the First Provisional Regiment, first as medical officer of the 
2nd Battalion, and later in charge of Field Hospital No. 2, at 
Ossining, during the influenza epidemic. Major Clinton, who has 
written several light operas, composed the music of his march 
first and then the words. To the swinging march the words of 
"The Good Old N. Y. G." run: 



''We're New York boys, and we make some noise. 

As everybody knows; 
On the job we'll stay, both night and day. 

Right behind our Colonel Rose. 
We know what water looks like, for 

That is all that we can get. 
And we use it to drink; that is brave, I think, 

And to bathe in 'cause it's wet. 



Cho: 



"Oh, the tramp! tramp! tramp! of the marching feet 

Is a sound of which we're fond. 
And we hope Bill Kaiser will hear us, too. 

In his home across the pond; 
We will take good care of the Aqueduct, 

Twelve hundred strong are we, 
In the First Provisional Regiment 

Of the good old N. Y. G. 



"When the war is done and the cause is won, 

With honors we'll be ripe. 
But we'll heave a sigh when we say good-by 

To that hundred miles of pipe. 
Then all New York of our work will talk. 

And a dam* good reason why; 
For the water, you know, we kept running, so 

The old town would not go dry." 

Cho: 

This song was published by Jerome Remick, and several hundred 
copies of it were distributed throughout the regiment. It was 
sung by the men of the line from Ashokan to Hillview and was 
another means of developing regimental spirit. Its official debut 
was made at Regimental Headquarters, when Colonel Rose and 
his staflF officers sang it first to the music of a melodeon on the 
evening of Oct. 22nd, 1917. 



370 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 



PROSE 

Of prose but two specimens are offered, the first being a typical 
news-letter to The Watchdog from its correspondent, Leslie Du 
Vernoy, at the Breakneck outpost. Du Vernoy wrote a classic 
once on pulp-made underwear, but that is neither here nor there. 
His snapshots of life on the line were true to type, and a couple 
of incidents taken from a news-letter sent in during the spring of 
1918 will give an idea of Hne humor: 



The other day, Cootie Pete Vaow, Dirty-face 
Dan Decker and Southpaw Bill Spangenburg 
started on a fishing trip to a pond around 
here. It seems that these fellows were not 
getting enough eats out of this camp to cause 
J. P. Morgan to gnash his teeth, but there's 
one thing about our job — it's steady. Any- 
way, the day they went fishing will be re- 
membered by all in Breakneck. We were 
eating dinner when Cootie Pete, who's a good 
scout, even if he can't fish, took his face 
out of his dish of goulash long enough to cast 
an eye at the sky and said, "Let's go fishin'.'* 

When they were all dolled up in their fatigue 
clothes ready to go, we wished them all kinds 
of luck and were sorry we could not send *em 
off with their pockets full of horse-shoes and 
wreaths of four-leaf clovers. 

From the latest returns, we now find out 
that it was Dirty Dan who lamped a queer ob- 
ject floating in the water. His shout brings 
Southpaw to his side, while on the opposite 
shore Cootie ambles up and risks one eye on 
the curiosity. He saw right away that it was 

a sea-going ukulele which had escaped from | 

a Newburgh jazz band and was seeking some f 

quiet boiler factory to rest up in. " ; 

We anticipated a fish supper, but if the j 

bunch waited for them to get the eats we j 

sure would starve. When the cook handed 
out the authorized rations we were glad to 
grab our share and dig in. 



We are glad to welcome Corporal Sprage 
with us again, who blew into this camp to-day. 
He will be remembered by the boys of Com- 
pany C, especially the last time he was at 
Breakneck, that it was he who accepted that 
$1,000 maltese cat from the mistress of Storm 
King. He liked this cat so much that pnQ 



LITERATURE OF THE REGIMENT 371 

day he made her a present of a granite laval- 
liere weighing about five tons. She had a fat 
chance to swim with a young N. Y. Central 
station wrapped around her neck. We 
wanted to shoot it and give it a decent burial, 
but he pointed out to us that bullets cost money 
and nobody would dig a grave, let alone chip 
in for flowers and a tombstone. 

From the first the editors of The Watchdog made it a point not 
to try to reconstruct the correspondence from the Hne, for as 
soon as this was done the correspondence lost its Hne flavor. As 
will be noted from these extracts, line colloquialisms and even 
allowable personalities were not barred. And the men liked the 
writing the better for it. 

Turning to serious prose, an editorial in The Watchdog on the 
attitude of Americans generally toward the war overseas is here- 
with reproduced. There was just enough of these really serious 
things to maintain the standards of sacrifice and service that were 
the regiment's from the beginning, and this is a fair example of 
this particular class of editorial which from time to time spoke 
to the men on the line: 

WHAT IS THE PRICE? 

Over the towers of Jerusalem, the Holy 
City, fly the flags of the Allied nations. After 
centuries the City of the King is again a por- 
tion of the Christian world. The manger of 
Bethlehem is shielded on this coming Christmas 
night by the Cross of St. George. This is the 
bright side of the great war picture. 

But the darker side is more insistent as it 
thrusts itself upon us. True, Russia is in the 
throes of a counter-revolution that bids fair 
to be successful, but Russia is beaten to her 
knees on the Eastern front, Italy is thrown 
back by the German hordes from the passes, 
and on the Western front the din of battle, 
arising as this is written, tells of a mighty 
Teutonic smash to be delivered before winter 
lays its final icy grip upon the combatants of 
the world. 

And thus it Is that as the books are bal- 
anced at the end of this fiscal year of war, the 
debit side seems heavier than its mate; the 
issue still hangs in the balance, and of all 
achievements only the capture of Jerusalem 
stands out with dramatic hope and promise 
of the ultimate. 



372 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

For Jerusalem, the despair of the Crusaders, 
for which rivers of blood ran upon the sands of 
mediaeval Europe, has fallen at last. And 
it is an omen of the certain and sure success 
that will come though the war be long and 
though the price may be past all counting. 

And that price? 

It is measured and is still to be measured 
in thousands of acres of shell-scarred, battle- 
torn, blood-soaked soil. It is accounted in 
devastated homes, ravished women, murdered 
children and the ultimate sacrilege. It is 
marked off by hate, by fear, by death, and 
by frenzy. Its boundaries are heaven and 
hell. It is the greatest price, save one, that 
the world has ever paid — it may be the price 
of you, and you, and you — the price that bar- 
ters a lump of shrapnel-battered flesh for a 
living man. 

Is the price too great? 

The answer is, "No!" 

"No," were it ten times what it may be; 
though it were the price of every one who 
may read this written work; "No," though 
it drenched our own fair land in hot red. It 
is the price of all the world — the world's debt 
left us in legacy by the martyrs and prophets, 
by all those who have been scourged and burned 
and tortured and slain for right. Ours — ours 
to pay. Our right, our opportunity, our 
destiny. 



HEALTH 

FROM first to last in the eighteen months of field service the 
First Provisional Regiment maintained an average sick per- 
centage of 3.32. At no time, even at the height of the influenza 
epidemic, was the percentage over 12, and in 14 months of the 
18 of service not higher than 6. The influenza epidemic 
spoiled what would have stood as the lowest figure on record for 
troops serving 18 months under field conditions. As it is, with 
the influenza epidemic figures of 500-odd cases included, the 
record of healthiness established by the First Provisional is 
unique. 

Immediately the question occurs, "Why was this organization 
thus favored ?" "Why was it immune from fevers and, with two 
exceptions, from epidemics of any kind?" "Why, in view of the 
personnel, the scanty equipment, and the very nature of the duty 
itself, was there so little sickness?" 

The answer is found in the fatherly care of the Commanding 
Ofl&cer of the regiment for the men of his command; in the cease- 
less efforts made by him to secure for them the best possible in 
housing, in clothing, in food, and in medical attention, and in the 
methods of physical check used on the line of the First Provisional. 
The answer is found in St. Luke's Hospital, Newburgh, where one 
of the country's greatest surgeons goes his ways in these times of 
peace, after having been of the greatest service to his State and 
his nation as chief medical officer of the First Provisional Regiment. 
Not without reason did the Federal Government representatives 
inform Major Charles E. Townsend that he must stay on the 
Aqueduct with the men of the First Provisional. Although the 
U. S. A. Medical Corps was crying for surgeons such as he, his 
grasp of the needs of the line, his strict methods and his knowledge 
of human nature, made him indispensable to the Aqueduct work 
which the Department of the East considered so vital. 

And the same was true of Capt. E. C. Waterbury, who, with a 
Federal commission in his hand, was still kept on the Aqueduct 
to meet the great scourge that struck the line in the late days of 
September and which threatened the very life of the regiment 
itself until checked. 



374 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

The answer is found in the faithful labors of Major Charles 
A. Clinton, who, as medical officer of the 2nd Battalion in the 
regiment's early days, as acting chief medical officer in the absence 
of Major Townsend in the summer of 1918, as 3rd Battalion 
medical officer serving with captain's pay for the sake of the 
regiment, and as officer in charge of Field Hospital No. 2 in the 
dark days of the epidemic, meant so much to the health of the 
regiment. 

It is found in the efforts of Kingsbury, Aaronowitz, Horgan, 
Kinney and Benson, all medical officers with the First Provisional; 
in the insistence of the tireless battalion inspectors on camp sani- 
tation and personal hygiene; it is found in the honest, day-long 
effort of the officers and the non-commissioned officers of the regi- 
ment, who instilled into the minds of their men the principles of 
sanitation and hygiene and sent them into the Federal army or 
back to civil life better citizens for the knowledge they had 
gained in the ranks of the First Provisional. 

After all, the question of army health is one in which personnel 
is the factor of prime importance. A company trained in the 
principles of sanitation and hygiene, and schooled in the care of 
camp and body, will remain healthy in a swamp, while the un- 
schooled unit will develop disease in the fresh airs of the mountain- 
side. 

History is full of the lesson that the congregation of men in 
camps means sickness. With that premise, the answer must be 
found in the personnel, its make-up, treatment and its response 
to this treatment. Consider the case of the First Provisional 
Regiment: 

Imprimus. The season of its entry into the field was most 
favorable to the acclimation of the troops. The great heat of 
the summer of 1917 had nearly passed; the clear, tonic days of the 
autumn came on soon, and before the rainy season and the heavy 
winter of 1917-18 set in the units brought into the field in August 
were seasoned to life in the open. 

And the men who comprised it originally were, for the greater 
part, accustomed to outdoor life. With the departure of the V. C. 
A. there were left on the line 1 1 up-State units and 5 city units. 
Not that the men from up-State were without spot or blemish. 
As a matter of fact, the detachment of old Company C of the 
First carried the highest percentage of sickness per capita of any 
unit on the line at the time. But, generally speaking, the men 
from up-State were hardy, with a liberal sprinkling of farmers, 
truck-drivers, freight-handlers, automobile men, and others who 
had led outdoor lives. 



HEALTH 375 

The weeding-out process of the weaklings in the early days 
consumed some time, but when it was finished the regiment was 
strong and sound, as a whole. The very nature of the work itself, 
the intense, long hours of duty, the long hours of actual hard 
manual labor, and the nervous tension, automatically eliminated 
in the final analysis the unfit or made them over into the fit. It 
was in a sense an application of the oldest law of nature, the sur- 
vival of the fittest. Men without physical, mental and moral 
stamina could not stand such a strain as the men of the First 
Provisional were subjected to in the days of mobilization and 
organization. And so it was that with the coming of the first 
snows, and the coming of the first big replacements, the line was 
set from the physical standpoint. 

Now it should be borne in mind that there were few men in the 
ranks of the First Provisional Regiment, in the beginning, who were 
there from original choice. Almost every man who came into the 
field had been rejected from one and in some cases all branches of 
the United States army service for physical disability of one kind 
or another. At first glimpse this would seem to militate against 
the health of the organization as a whole. On the contrary, it 
demonstrated in hundreds of instances that physical disabilities 
may be overcome by field training and field life. 

Perhaps the most striking instance of this was the case of a boy 
from Utica who had been rejected by every recruiting station to 
which he had made application. He entered the field with one 
of the units of the First Provisional, a weak, white-faced, narrow- 
chested chap, with a splendid determination but an anemic body. 

In five months of ceaseless duty on the Hne and in camp he 
developed into a husky, broad-shouldered, round-faced youngster, 
full of virility and animal spirits, straight-backed, full-chested, 
erect, lithe and snappy in every movement. In the summer of 
1918 he was accepted by that most exacting branch of the service, 
the United States Marines. His training on the Aqueduct gave 
him chevrons within a month. With good fortune dodging his 
every step, he entered an overseas detachment, went to France, 
and when Civilization stood at Armageddon-on-the-Marne, went 
through Chateau Thierry unscathed, on the crest of the wave that 
finally beat against the farther banks of the Rhine. 

His case was that of many, who, though they were not privileged 
to participate in the crux of the struggle, developed from weaklings 
to strong men, went overseas, and were saved to the armies of the 
United States. They would otherwise have been waste material 
had there been no such training-ground as the First Provisional 
to remake them. 



^^e H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

How the service made over men was again demonstrated at 
demobilization time, when the men returned to home station. 
Some of them were obHged to wear their uniforms for two or 
three weeks until they could buy new "cits." They had outgrown 
their old ones at almost every point. As a reclamation unit alone 
the First Provisional justified its existence. 

And now to retrace to the original premise: Since it was in- 
evitable that a greater portion of the men who were to make up 
the First Provisional would be below the standards required 
by the United States army's physical examination, it was im- 
portant that only men should be brought into the field who could 
be made to measure up to the physical requirements of the job. 
And so it was that replacement furnished one of the real health 
problems of the regiment. 

So long as the Commanding Officer was permitted to inspect 
and select from the units offered for service by home organiza- 
tions, the proper balance could be preserved, and this was done 
faithfully. Remembering that the orders which prescribe the 
functions of the New York Guard were predicated on the idea of 
emergency service, primarily, it will be seen how enlistments at 
home station for service in time of emergency only allowed the 
enlistment of many men who could not possibly live up to the 
requirements of the Aqueduct work. 

When in the spring of 1918 the privilege of medical examination, 
inspection and rejection was denied Colonel Rose, the difficulties 
with which the regiment was obliged to cope increased materially. 
There was no possible method of catching physical defectives 
before they reached the line, and once they had arrived on the 
line their commanding ofl&cers, because of the shortness of man 
power, were reluctant to let them go, quite naturally attempting 
to conceal defects from the eye of the medical officer for fear of 
losing their men. 

At the best, with all of the physical inspections, selection and 
rejection originally allowed, there was a marked upward turn of 
the sick percentage line on the regimental charts immediately 
following the entry of new troops into the field, as will be shown 
by the various examples cited in notations on the charts them- 
selves. For instance, there was never a more carefully inspected 
unit than that of the 71st Infantry, which entered the field in 
November of 1917, but there was an immediate upward movement 
of the sick line following the entry. This was in all cases of new 
troops, of course, partially due to reaction from inoculation for 
typhoid and paratyphoid, but more largely due to the inevitable 
colds and allied sicknesses which accompanied the period of ac- 



HEALTH 377 

climation. It is not fair to expect that a man can be taken from 
his desk this day and to-morrow put out in the wind and rain of 
the cut and cover without developing in him some physical ail- 
ments that would be foreign to the acclimated soldier. 

The charts themselves are the best proof of the big advantage 
that the regiment lost when it lost the right of physical examination 
at home station under the orders of the Brigade Commander. 
Lack of physical examinations resulted in the entry into the field 
of a large number of hernia cases that were easily operative, but 
which would have cost the State more than the worth of the man's 
service had the operations performed by Major Townsend been 
paid affairs, or at another hospital than the one where he was chief 
surgeon. How many thousands of dollars Major Townsend's 
position as chief medical officer of the regiment saved the State 
may be gathered from the reports of operative cases in the history 
of the regiment's service. 

With the man once in the field, even under the most favorable 
conditions to the regiment — that is, with physical examinations 
before entry — a mighty task faced the officers responsible for him. 

Since 90 per cent, of the men of the regiment were without 
previous field service, they knew nothing of the fundamentals 
which are a part of the very life of the old soldier. Inoculations 
were a source of dread in the beginning, and much of the reaction 
resulting was due to the men not following along the lines that 
would have been observed by old soldiers. For instance, instead 
of keeping the arm in vigorous motion following inoculation, the 
inclination was to nurse it, with resulting stiffness and soreness. 
The nature of the guard duty did not permit of time off for the 
newly inoculated men, and in some cases the men were not careful 
of themselves while on post following inoculation. 

Inoculations over, there was still the instillation of personal 
hygiene into the new man. He must be taught that a clean body 
is the first law of the soldier, and while most men are naturally 
given to the liberal use of water, there is nearly always at least 
one dirty man in every outfit, who is a menace to his comrades. 

Now it is a difficult matter to impress a man with the necessity 
for frequent baths when there are no bathing facilities provided 
for him at camp or near by. Shower-baths were few and far be- 
tween on the line of the First Provisional, and it was not until 
the summer of the regiment's second year in the field that any 
active motion in the matter could be secured. This was made 
possible by the Citizens' Committee. 

Most company commanders met this difficulty by bath details 
sent regularly to Y. M. C. A. buildings, armories, hotels, or even 



378 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

private homes, in the near-by towns. But since the movement of 
men involved transportation, and since transportation was always 
at low ebb on the line of the regiment, this plan had its fundamental 
difficulties. The real solution of the problem would have been 
what the Commanding Officer advocated when the regiment 
entered the field — a shower-bath at every company headquarters. 
The following report, submitted July 9th, 19 18, shows the con- 
dition of the regiment with relation to baths in the summer of 
191 8, and summer was the time of year that gave the regiment its 
most favorable bath conditions: 



First Battalion 

Co. A, Millwood, N. Y.: 

Remarks. Have one shower at Millwood Hdqrs. Men 
hire taxicab at cost per round trip to Ossining, or walk, 
which is a distance of about 6 miles. Reason given for 
not using shower at Millwood, on account of not having 
hot water. 

Co. B, Van Cortlandtville: 

Remarks. Members of this command walk to Peekskill 
and bathe at Peekskill Police Station, a distance of about 
3 miles. No cost for bath, men carry their own towels and 
soap. No local bathing facilities in vicinity. 

Co. C, Nelsonville, N. Y.: 

Remarks. Men go to Newburgh from Cold Spring by 
rail at a cost of about ^20 weekly. Baths are furnished at 
Newburgh Y. M. C. A. Charge of 5 cents for towels and 
soap. No local bathing facilities, but men at the outposts 
at Breakneck are bathing in the Hudson River. 

Co. D, Peekskill, N.Y.: 

Remarks. Men go by trolley for 10 cents a round trip, 
or walk to Peekskill. Bathing facilities at Peekskill 
Police Station without cost. Men carry their own towels 
and soap. 

Second Battalion 

Co. E, Olive Bridge: 

Remarks. No bathing facilities. Thirteen miles from 
Olive Bridge to Kingston. Men go by automobile at cost 
of $5 each way for a party of 4 men. Paid by men them- 




upper — Capt. E. C. Waterbury and Sergeant Roth at winter head- 
quarters, Pines Bridge, 191 7. Lozver left — Major Charles E. Townsend, 
chief medical officer of the regiment. Right — "The First Shot." A train- 
ing detachment getting typhoid inoculation at headquarters. Captain 
Blume, extreme left. 



D«o Binb • p —^ — ;j— 




Showing the Rise and Fall of the Influenza Epidemic in Its 
First and Recurrent Waves 



March 



Sick-charts, 191 8 
April 



May 







1 1 


131 men brc-uett into field , 4 officers ana 141 meo brcttght , 2 ofiicers acd CO man brought 
1 iLto field. 1 i»to fi=ld 




.Ajlh. A. 1 . i 


''^^^^.1 ^ 


1 ^^Va^-" 


'Tn 



October 



Novemb 



December 









' 


?leli Bo.ntU Jo.l,S«wHu-fi oiet.s 
eetftttr 4. 

?1.14 BMiiTai i«.2.o»«ii.iBe oraea 

OotoOer e.C cinMn les nS kico^t 

irto fi.'ia. "^ 




•X 
•X 

V- 
X 


A 


1 




1. 




k 




i 'V 




















V 










Company F barracks. Capt. Hayden J. Bates, Major J. A. Blair. 
Company A's unfinished barracks, winter of 191 7. Major Hodges and 
his transit. Early housing facilities. Olive Bridge barracks, winter of 
191 7. Company M barracks. How the conicals were made to serve. 
Barracks conference at headquarters, fall of 1917. 



HEALTH 379 

selves. Baths free at Y. M. C. A., except charge of 5 
cents for soap and towel. 

Co. E, Atwood: 

Remarks. No bathing facilities. Twenty miles to King- 
ston. Men go by truck or car at cost of $5 each way for 
a party of 4 men. Paid by men themselves. Baths free 
at Y. M. C. A., except for charge of 5 cents for soap and 
towel. 

Co. H, Stone Ridge: 

Remarks. Shower-bath in barracks. Shower in poor 
condition, owing to defective shower-head. 

Co. F, New Paltz: 

Remarks. No bathing facilities. Men go by city-owned 
trucks to New Paltz, from New Paltz to Poughkeepsie, 
at cost of 50 cents a round trip, to Y. M. C. A. Charge 
of 5 cents for soap and towel. Expenses paid by men. 

Co. G, Gardiner: 

Remarks. Main camp at Gardiner, Camp Culvert jG. No 
bathing facilities. Men go to Gardiner by city-owned 
truck. Cost of bath, 25 cents, paid by City of New York. 

Co. G, Shafts 3 and 6: 
Remarks. As above. 

Co. G, Sherwood Corners: 

Remarks. Men walk i^ miles to trolley. Ten cents a 
round trip to Newburgh. Bath at Y. M. C. A. at cost of 
5 cents. Paid by men. 

Co. G, St. Andrews, Walden: 

Remarks. To Walden by trolley at cost of 10 cents a 
round trip. Bath at Y. M. C. A. at cost of 5 cents. Ex- 
penses paid by men. 

M. G. Co., Cochecton Turnpike and Little Britain Turn- 
pike and Vail's Gate: 

Remarks. Men go to Newburgh by city-owned truck. 
Bath at Y. M. C. A. at cost of 5 cents. Paid by men. 
25 



38o H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

Third Battalion 

Battalion Hdqrs: Bath-tub. 

Company M: 

Outpost No. I, Harlem Railroad siphon: To Jewish 
Home, 3 miles away. Walk. Outpost No. 2: To 
Jewish Home, i mile away. Walk. Headquarters: Walk 
}4 mile to Jewish Home. Installing outside showers. 
Have requisitioned for fittings from Supply Officer, but 
have not received them. Outpost No. 4: Walk to Jewish 
home, 4 miles away. Sector S-7: Headquarters tub, 
but insufficient water supply. Go to White Plains by 
railroad, fare 12 cents each way. 

Post No. 4-A. One-and-a-half miles walk to Valhalla. 
Can take train to White Plains. 

Post 4-C. Same as No. 4-A. 

Posts 5 and 6: Ry's 15 cents to White Plains. 

Company I: 

Headquarters: Shower. Authority needed to drain 
water before showers can be used. 

North Tarry town and Glenville Outposts: Walk to 
Tarrytown, 2 miles. All other outposts: Walk to White 
Plains, 2 to 3^ miles. 

Company L: 

Shower at headquarters. In need of repair. Outpost 
No. 2: Go to Yonkers or Walker's house, ^ to 2 miles. 
Pay own transportation. 

Underbill Road: Swimming-hole built by men. 

Ardsley Outpost: Go to Yonkers. Bath-tub works some- 
times. 

Company K: 

Headquarters: Has shower-bath. 

Outposts I and 2: Walk 3 miles to headquarters. 

Outposts 4 and 5. Go to Yonkers by trolley — distance 
2 miles; pay own fare. 

The new man must receive special instruction in the care of 
his feet, especially in work such as that of the First Provisional. 



HEALTH 38I 

Long hours of walking post in slush and mud or in boiling sun 
do not make for healthy feet unless special care and attention 
are given to the pedal extremities. This is another thing that old 
soldiers would have known. The square cutting of toe nails, the 
treatment of blisters, and all of the other primary things regarding 
the treatment of the feet were new to most of these men. 

And in the care of the other extremity, the mouth, which means 
so much in health or sickness, there must also be special instruc- 
tion. The number of men entering the field without tooth- 
brushes was startling. Even one of the training classes, made up 
from picked privates of each company and sent to Regimental Head- 
quarters for instruction, the usual questions asked on the night 
of the first lecture on personal hygiene, showed that 11 of the 
26 men were without tooth-brushes or tooth-paste! There was 
one instance on the line where three men used the same tooth- 
brush until discovered. 

How much the care of the teeth meant to the digestion, the 
importance of mouth-police, and all of the reasons therefor, had 
to be taken up in detail. The condition of the men's teeth was 
such that from the time of his entry into the field early in the 
winter of 1917-18, Lieut. Edgar V. Friend, D. C, was continu- 
ously engaged in the relief of critical cases alone. 

With a portable chair, dental engine and kit, he traveled the 
length of the line, serving first with one company and then another, 
and saving huge dental bills that would have been necessary for 
outside treatment. A sample of one of his reports is herewith 
given to show the nature and amount of work required to keep 
the regiment's teeth even in average condition: 

The following is a report of work done by me during the 
month ending March 15th: 

Headquarters Company 

Sergeant Walsh i cleaning 

I treatment 

Sergeant-Major Dixon i cleaning 

Bugler Stapleton i cleaning 

I amalgam filling 

1 treatment 
Private Davis 7 treatments 

2 temporary fillings 

Private Cook i treatment 

Private Couse 3 amalgam fillings 



382 H-A-L-TT!— WHA-ZAA? 

Company A 

Private Gerstenberg i treatment 

I cement filling 
Private C. Bright 3 extractions 

Company C, First Prov. Regt. 

Private Nutter i devitalization 

3 treatments 
I root-canal filling 
I cement stop 
I amalgam filling 

Private L. Van Patten i devitalization 

3 root-canal fillings 
I cement stop 
I amalgam filling 

Private Farrell 2 amalgam fillings 

Private Francois 2 extractions 

I amalgam filling 

Private Twining 7 amalgam fillings 

Private Weston 3 amalgam fillings 

I cement filling 

1 treatment 
Private Scudder i devitalization 

3 root-canals filled 

2 treatments 

3 amalgam fillings 
* 2 cement stops 

Private Robinson 2 amalgam fillings 

1 cleaning 
Cook Loveland 2 treatments 

2 temporary fillings 

1 devitalization 

2 root-canals filled 

1 cement stop 

2 amalgam fillings 
First-Sergeant Landon 2 amalgam fillings 

I cleaning 

Sergeant Vergason i cleaning 

Sergeant Wamby i cleaning 

Sergeant Whitmarsh i treatment 

5 amalgam fillings 

Edgar V. Friend, 
1st Lieutenant, Dental Corps. 



HEALTH 383 

And the army's biggest enemy, venereal disease, had to be 
met by the instruction of the men, careful explanation of the dan- 
gers of promiscuous intercourse, and the percentage of disease 
resulting from it. It was the prompt action of the medical officers 
and the commanding officers of the various units shortly after the 
entry of the regiment into the field that was responsible for the 
very low percentage of venereal infection in the ranks. 

For several months the territory covered by the regiment had 
been under armed control, and wherever there are bodies of soldiers 
prostitution moves into the neighborhood. Vigorous and prompt 
action, with hearty co-operation from the police and health authori- 
ties of the various communities in the vicinity of the line, resulted 
in stamping this out. In one instance a battalion medical officer, 
the company commander whose sector was affected, and one of the 
staff officers from Regimental Headquarters spent an entire day 
interviewing and warning the keepers of disorderly houses and 
sitting-rooms in the vicinity of the line of the drastic action that 
would follow the entertainment of soldiers at their places. It was 
not regular, but it was effective. Securing a constable or a justice 
of the peace from the vicinity in which the places were located, 
the officers went to the persons responsible for the existence of the 
danger centers and talked frankly to them. 

In one case only was there any inclination to take issue with the 
military dictate. 

"If soldiers come here, I can't stop them," said one woman, 
sullenly. 

"And it's nobody's business if they do," chimed in one of the 
men of the "joint." 

"Then I'll give you fair warning at this point," was the re- 
joinder from the Commanding Officer's representative. "If you 
even put your nose over the line we've given you, we'll push you 
off the map!" 

It was no idle threat. Colonel Rose had determined that 
venereal troubles were to be eliminated from consideration, and 
headquarters was ready to go to any limit in the matter. There 
was no trouble with that particular place from that time on. 

In so far as the men themselves were concerned, they were 
warned of the immediate punishment that would follow failure to 
report to their company commanders after being out. The results 
spoke for themselves. The First Provisional, with its total of 
8,000 men at one time and another, was probably more free of the 
dread diseases than any other organization of its kind in military 
history. 

Hand in hand with the instruction of the new man in personal 



384 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

hygiene goes camp sanitation and its importance. Your recruit 
cannot understand how greasy dish-water spilled on the ground 
can affect his health, until the way of the fly has been impressed 
on his mind. He looks on the incinerator as a dirty job and fit 
only for a prisoner, until he is imbued with the idea that any one 
can make garbage, but it takes a good man to dispose of it. The 
wash-basin and bucket at the latrine are ordinary nuisances in 
his initial conception of them, and he will insist on sleeping with 
his head under his blanket, and with his windows down in cold 
weather, if he is allowed. 

This chapter would be unduly extended were methods of camp 
sanitation to be discussed in detail, but for the benefit of those 
who may in later years find themselves meeting the same condi- 
tions, a word about incinerators, latrines and quarters: 

Incineration of garbage and refuse was made a more difficult 
matter than ordinarily because of the great number of outposts 
for each company. Where non-commissioned officers were in 
charge of outposts, supervision of incineration needs must be 
left to them, and this was not always satisfactory. Shortage of 
man power made it almost impossible to have incineration details 
consistent at many times, and only the incessant watchfulness of 
battalion inspectors and company commanders secured the re- 
sults. Most camps disposed of their solid garbage, if possible, 
to near-by farmers as a part of the conservation plan, and this 
left only odd kitchen wastes, liquids and rubbish, to incinerate. 
At headquarters and many of the company posts the plan of de- 
tailing special men to incineration, with a prisoner to aid them, 
was adopted, and the incinerator savings plan was made possible 
by this. 

Police details ordinarily pick up everything loose and throw 
it into a common receptacle. If the entire contents of that re- 
ceptacle are thrown onto the incinerator by the detail, destruction 
or loss of small quartermaster property occurs daily. Incinerator 
men were impressed with the idea that nothing must be thrown 
onto their fires by any one besides themselves, and police rubbish 
was sorted for spoons, cups, tent-pegs, rope, tent-guys and other 
small articles that often amounted to as much as a dollar a day in 
total value saved from the fire. 

All styles of incinerators were used, from the common stone- 
lined pit to the saucer-shaped with center chimney. Manure was 
incinerated in pits daily, and picket-line burned off, as were in- 
cinerator surroundings. 

Latrines were in the beginning equipped with spring covers, 
but the cross-piece that made the open cover impossible was found 



HEALTH 38s 

to be the more practicable and lasting. Field-service regulations 
regarding the size of latrines and movement at necessary periods 
were, of course, strictly complied with. The hardest standard 
to maintain was the wash-basin at the latrine. 

Quarters were for the most part kept in the best condition 
and the battalion ratings helped to increase the efficiency of the 
various units in this respect. One of the biggest difficulties was 
in teaching the city man to combat with the open-air sleeping 
conditions. The common habit was to either close windows or 
else sleep with heads underneath blankets, a very unhealthy pro- 
cedure and one which kept officers and non-commissioned officers 
busy in its correction. 

In addition to the general oversight of personal hygiene and 
camp sanitation which would ordinarily fall to the lot of the 
medical officer, the battalion M. O.'s of the First Provisional had 
other problems, not the least of which was the one afforded by the 
everlasting entrance of the geographical factor of the service. 
Normally there was a medical officer for each battalion, but at 
one time Captain Waterbury covered the ist and 3rd Battalion 
lines, a distance of more than 60 miles. The 2nd Battalion line, 
more than 40 miles long, with its mountain outposts, offered a big 
problem to the medical officers responsible for it. Since the value 
of the medical officer depended solely on the transportation avail- 
able to cover his line, the transportation question, elsewhere con- 
sidered, was a vital one to him. In the case of Captain Water- 
bury, who shelved his own car in the service of the State, there 
would have been little help for the ist and 3rd Battalion lines 
had not the Motor Corps of the National League for Women's 
Service placed a car at his disposal daily. There was for some 
months no other transportation for him than that furnished by 
Lieut. Turner of Chappaqua and the women of her corps. 

Sick calls, in addition to daily visitations and inspections, 
crowded the waking, and sometimes the sleeping, hours of the 
line medical officers to the utmost. As was to be expected, a 
certain percentage of the emergency calls sent in by outposts were 
not emergency calls at all, and could have been easily handled 
on the following day's visitation. Let it not be understood that 
daily visits to all camps were possible. The geography of the 
work settled that in the beginning, although the medical officers 
did their best. 

No attempt is made here to go into the problems of medical 
practice that were met and mastered by these valiant warriors 
of i$^sculapius on the line of the Aqueduct. But there were one or 
two diseases familiar to every army man — morning sickness, or 



386 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

reveille inertia, and homesickness, that helped to swell the prob- 
lems of the medicos. 

The symptoms of morning sickness are generally accepted as 
standard. They begin at first call with violent pains in the stom- 
ach, or back or head, a "dizzy feelin'" and an inability to rise 
and dress for reveille roll-call. The remedy is a C. C. pill re- 
peated, and some castor-oil for good measure. The results are 
worse than the sickness and the cure is usually a lasting one — 
until next time. 

And then there is homesickness — a real condition; there are 
some boys who are actually sick with it and it has to* be met 
just the same as any other mental disturbance. Men lose interest 
in their work and their food, and get into such a state that they 
are subject to actual physical ills. The younger the men the 
more prevalent it is, and when it is considered that the average 
age of the men entering the field was 19, although the average 
age of those on continuous duty was higher, it will appear that 
the amount of this queer malady on the line must have been 
above normal. 

To carry on the work of coaching in camp sanitation and per- 
sonal hygiene, as well as to represent the medical officer in treat- 
ment of men sick in quarters, and to administer first aid in cases 
of necessity, the medical officers picked men in each main camp, 
men who through knowledge or adaptability were best fitted for 
the work. The special orders which called the regiment into the 
field provided for a sanitary detachment of 10 enlisted men, but 
this detachment never operated as a separate unit. Due to the 
constant release and replacement of men, it was hard to keep 
good medical orderlies in the camps along the line, and the medical 
officers met with a constantly shifting problem in this connection. 

Another difficulty faced by the medical officers was lack of 
sufficient simple remedies to distribute at the posts and outposts 
for the use of the men under direction of the officers. There is no 
doubt that the health percentage of the regiment could have been 
kept even higher had there been authority for the purchase of 
medicines, or had there been no dispute over the bills when once 
contracted. While the authority of the medical officer was theo- 
retically supremt in the matter of medical necessities, the actuality 
was quite different. 

In the winter of 1917-18 a short epidemic of mumps broke out 
in the Troop B barracks on the Company F line. This was 
promptly met by Major Townsend, the men were isolated, 
authority was secured for a hospital and nurse at New Paltz, 
and the thing was checked at its beginnings. The regiment, all 



HEALTH 387 

things considered, continued in very good health up to October of 
1918, when it met with its worst enemy. 

This was the so-called Spanish influenza epidemic, which, be- 
ginning on the Company G line, swept practically the entire 
regiment and made necessary the establishment of two field hos- 
pitals and the bending of every regimental energy to check it. 

Spanish influenza had been raging in the National Army camps 
for some time before it laid its finger on the First Provisional. 
With the foresight that characterized his entire administration of 
the regiment's aff"airs, the Commanding Officer, looking at the 
National Army camp figures in early September, came to the con- 
clusion that some appearance of the disease on the line was in- 
evitable. And it was this conclusion which prompted the verbal 
orders to each unit commander for the selection of two of his 
best privates from the company to be sent into regimental head- 
quarters for a period of instruction and training. Appreciating 
that trained help would be hard to secure in the event of an epi- 
demic, Colonel Rose desired to form a unit of men inspired 
with regimental ideals and fundamentally sound and enthusiastic, 
schooled in hygiene and sanitation, and awake to their responsi- 
bilities. 

How well he calculated the history of the epidemic shows. 
On Sept. 26th, Major Townsend, in a communication to Colonel 
Rose, sounded warning against the probable inroads of influenza 
on the line and asked that orders issue for immediate action by 
commanding oflRcers in the case of men complaining with the 
usual symptoms of ordinary grippe. 

Company commanders were immediately advised by telephone 
that in case of sickness resembling ordinary grippe-cold among 
their men the men were to be sent to the nearest hospital, and 
until actual transfer kept warm and comfortable. 

On the same day that Major Townsend sounded his warning 
Corp. Clarence Miller, Provisional Company G, was taken to St. 
Luke's Hospital, Newburgh, with high temperature and the gen- 
eral symptoms of Spanish influenza. This was the first case of 
the hundreds. Miller died on Oct. loth. 

The appearance of the influenza in Captain Johnson's command 
is not a matter of mystery. Two men had been home on leave to 
Binghamton. At that time influenza was being carried by pas- 
sengers on trains and cars and by pedestrians in the street. And 
so it was a leave of absence that brought the scourge to the First 
Provisional. It was certain to have come in one way or another. 
The air was too full of it for the regiment to escape. 

Colonel Rose advised Major Townsend to watch the situation 



388 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

closely, and when nine cases were found in Captain Johnson's 
command on the 29th day of September, the chief medical officer 
reported it immediately, with the recommendation of a quarantine 
on the entire line. This was about six o'clock in the evening. At 
8 P. M. telephonic orders issued from headquarters to all battaHon 
commanders and company commanders directed suspending all 
passes and furloughs, recalling all men from leave, and forbidding 
all contact by men of the regiment with outsiders. The Supply 
Officer was directed to proceed to St. Luke's Hospital, Newburgh, 
with tentage, stoves, cots, blankets and mess equipment for the 
establishment of open-air wards on the grounds of St. Luke's. 

On the following morning the Adjutant-General of the Pro- 
visional Brigade was advised of the condition on the line, and 
Colonel Rose 'phoned to Lieut. -Col. Edward J. Westcott, the 
acting Adjutant-General of the State, a story of the conditions 
direct, receiving necessary authority for the purchase of supplies 
and the establishment of a field hospital at Newburgh. 

Written orders confirming the telephonic orders of the previous 
day as to the suspension of passes, etc., were issued on the 30th, 
Major Townsend was directed to proceed to Albany for a con- 
ference with the Adjutant-General and the State Health authori- 
ties, and Capt. E. C. Waterbury was assigned to duty with the 
2nd Battalion. 

Immediately upon Major Townsend's return from Alb any, where 
he had secured blanket authority for necessary action to meet 
the emergency, general orders were issued from headquarters de- 
claring a quarantine on the line of the regiment to prevent the 
spread of influenza. There were 14 cases of influenza in St. 
Luke's on the evening of the 29th. On the following day there 
were 21. On the ist there were 26; on the 2nd, 30; and on the 
3rd, 34, with the greater portion of these, as shown by the ap- 
pended table, occurring in the 2nd Battalion. A large storage 
tent and a hospital tent were erected on the grounds of St. Luke's, 
floored, sided, and heated, but it immediately became apparent 
that this would not meet the demands of the epidemic. 

In the mean time contact had been established with Arnold 
Wood, director of military relief for the Atlantic Division, Amer- 
ican Red Cross, and following telephonic communication with him 
by Captain Baldwin, Colonel Rose addressed a communication 
to the Atlantic Division, asking action in the establishment of 
two field hospitals, one on each side of the river. Hospital equip- 
ment and nurses were also asked for. At that time the chief 
medical officer's estimate was for 100 cases, but this was greatly 
exceeded later. 



HEALTH 389 

On the 2nd of October, upon the direction of the Commanding 
Officer, Major Townsend concluded arrangements with the New- 
burgh Board of Education for the use of the large brick building 
adjacent to St. Luke's Hospital, in Newburgh, as a field hospital. 
On the same date there was received from Major Smiley of the 
American Red Cross the offer of the Burnham homestead in 
Beacon for the same purpose, but it was deemed inadvisable to 
establish two hospitals which would be available to practically 
the same section of the line. 

Mr. Wood, of the American Red Cross, advised the Commanding 
Officer on the 3rd that he was in a position to supply cots, bedding, 
pajamas, bath-robes, slippers and a few nurses. This offer was 
immediately accepted and the Red Cross advised that at least 
100 pairs of pajamas, 50 bath-robes, 100 pairs of socks and 50 
pairs of slippers should be furnished immediately to Major 
Townsend at Newburgh. 

It was at this point, again, that Colonel Rose's appreciation 
of human psychology was of immense advantage to the regiment. 
Certain of the mental condition sure to predominate in the camps 
where the disease was striking down men at the rate of four and 
five a day, he went to the northern end of the 2nd Battalion's line, 
accompanied by the Adjutant, on Oct. 3rd, inspecting the pro- 
posed field hospital at Newburgh and visiting the sick men in 
the contagion ward at St. Luke's en route. At that time the nature 
of the disease was not thoroughly understood except that the 
contagion danger was large, and as a result both officers were 
obliged to don surgical gowns before entering the wards where the 
sick men were. This was the first of many visits paid by Colonel 
Rose to the stricken men of the 2nd Battalion as they fought 
their battles with the grim destroyer on the hospital cots. Most 
of the men in the ward were in good spirits, but three cases of 
pneumonia had developed. The shortage of nurses was such that 
one. Miss Helen Mattler, a student nurse, had become exhausted 
and taken to her quarters with the disease. At the time Colonel 
Rose visited the hospital Miss McElroy had been on duty for 24 
hours continuously, and she was subsequently on duty at one 
time for 48 hours without sleep and with very little food. She was 
taken with influenza and narrowly escaped death. 

Rigid inspection of the post, outposts and line of Provisional 
Company E on the night of the 3rd and the morning of the 4th 
convinced Colonel Rose that conditions were normal there. On 
the morning of the 4th he personally conducted setting-up exer- 
cises, first at Olive Bridge and then at Brown's Station outpost, 
proceeding to Company H at the Peak, where setting-up exercises 



390 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

were given in the afternoon and guard-mount at night. The line 
of Company H showed the same conditions as those of Company E 
and there were no signs of outbreak. On the morning of the 5th 
Colonel Rose went southward to the Company F barracks on 
the Lake Mohonk road. There were six cases from Company F 
in the hospital, and while Colonel Rose was there another developed 
with a temperature of 104. This enabled the Commanding Officer 
to see the symptoms at close range. The man had been on post 
the previous tour of duty, and upon going to bed complained of 
headache and a chilly feeling. When he reported to Captain 
Decker about midnight he had a high temperature and was im- 
mediately sent to Newburgh in the Commanding Officer's car. 

And this was the man who voiced the spirit of the line as he 
was being taken to the hospital — not complaint about his own 
condition, but regret that he would be unable to take his post on 
the thin line at Bonticou at his regular time. *'It's the first time 
since Fve been out here that I haven't taken my trick, Sergeant; 
you know that," he grumbled on the way to the hospital. 

Field Hospital No. i was opened on the 4th, and that night 
35 patients were moved from St. Luke's to the brick building that 
had been secured for the field establishment. It was on the 4th 
that the regiment lost its first man to Spanish influenza, Private 
John Green, of the Machine Gun Company, 4th Infantry, attached 
to Provisional Company G. 

In the mean time, Spanish influenza had spread among the 
sailors stationed at Peekskill State Camp, where the Supply Com- 
pany's headquarters was located, and nine cases had developed 
in the Supply Company. The need of a field hospital on the east 
side of the Hudson was becoming more and more urgent, and when 
Colonel Rose met Capt. G. E. Lindsey of the American Red 
Cross at Brown's Station on the morning of the 4th, he requested 
him to proceed at once to Newburgh, giving such aid to Major 
Townsend as possible, and to make an endeavor to have the Red 
Cross establish a field hospital on the eastern side of the river. 
Major Townsend was directed to secure necessary authority for 
the hire of a sufficient number of nurses to meet the emergency. 

Captain Baldwin had been active in the matter of a second 
field hospital and had secured from Mr. V. Everit Macy permis- 
sion to use the premises formerly occupied by the Holbrook 
Military Academy on the heights above Ossining and overlooking 
the Hudson River. The Red Cross agreed to equip this building. 

When Colonel Rose arrived at Newburgh on the 6th, after an 
inspection of the infected camps of Company G and the Pro- 
visional Machine Gun Company, he found the new field hospital 



HEALTH 391 

running smoothly, but greatly overcrowded, and in need of trained 
orderlies. By this time the disease had developed to an alarming 
extent on the line of the 2nd Battalion. 

Immediately upon his return to Regimental Headquarters, 
Colonel Rose, in company with the Adjutant, visited the premises 
offered by Mr. Macy and inspected them under the guidance of 
Mr. Vincent Phelps, superintendent of the Macy estate, who at 
that time and subsequently was of the greatest assistance to the 
officers of the regiment at Field Hospital No. 2 and the new head- 
quarters. 

The buildings fitted the needs of the situation exactly, and 
Colonel Rose formally accepted the offer at that time. 

That night the men of the training company were assembled 
in the darkness of the company street and were told by the Adju- 
tant of the crisis that had arisen in the regiment. "You, because 
of your especial training and knowledge, and because you have 
learned what true service means, are to form the steel point of the 
flying wedge from the fifteen hundred enlisted men of this com- 
mand to battle against this disease," said the Adjutant, in telling 
of the call that had come for volunteer orderlies. "You are going 
into extreme danger when you volunteer for this service. You 
will need to remember all that has been taught you; all that you 
have learned here, and especially that you are soldiers. How 
many will volunteer?" 

The company volunteered as one man and from the ranks there 
were selected eight men to stand in the breach at Newburgh. 
These were: 

Private Willard La Due. .Provisional Machine Gun Co. 
Edward Perkins.. " " " " 



Matthew Keegan. 




Co. " E 


Irving Decker . . . 




- F 


Joseph Lucsak. . . 




" F 


Fred Durfee 




" G 


Harold Saxton. . . 




" H 


Leland Lewis .... 




" H 



With their blanket-rolls on their shoulders and their packs 
in their hands, these men went down Headquarters Hill into the 
rainy darkness to the cars that awaited to carry them to their 
greatest battle-ground. While all of these men were at one time 
and another stricken with the influenza as they went about their 
duties as orderlies at the hospital, none succumbed. Saxton had 



392 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

the hardest fight, and for some time his hfe was despaired of, but 
he pulled through. 

Services that night in the headquarters mess-hall were gloomed 
by the danger that threatened the regiment, but afterward there 
was a big sing-song and the boys went to their cots in a happier 
frame of mind than when they entered the hall. 

The next morning the Adjutant, with a detail of 17 volunteers 
drawn from the training detachment and the Headquarters Com- 
pany, established a post at the old Holbrook Academy in Ossining 
and began cleaning and preparation there for the opening of the 
hospital. Captain Lindsey of the Red Cross co-operated fully. 
The men of the detachment were fed at noon on the first day by 
a volunteer detail from the Red Cross canteen at Ossining, and 
all day and all night truck-loads of bedding and hospital supplies 
rolled in from the Red Cross units of the vicinity that had been 
called upon by Mr. Lindsey. 

Mrs. J. J. Campbell, of White Plains, was the first nurse to 
arrive from the Red Cross, followed shortly afterward by Mrs. 
Emma Goodwin, of White Plains. By midnight there were 40 
cots ready to receive the patients and the hospital equipment was 
coming in. Members of the Red Cross Motor Corps brought in 
ambulance-loads of material until long after midnight, and shortly 
before noon the next day the patients began to arrive. Major 
Charles A. Clinton was transferred from medical work with 
the 3rd Battalion to take charge of the hospital under Major 
Townsend's general direction, and Mr. Lindsey represented 
the Red Cross. The detail of enlisted men was assigned to 
quarters on the third floor of the west wing (later the admin- 
istration building) and Lieut. Clarence Higgs was transferred 
from the line to take charge of the personnel work at the new 
hospital. 

Both Col. J. Weston Myers, Chief Quartermaster of the State, 
and Major Townsend visited the new hospital on the 8th, and 
at that time Colonel Myers made arrangements which resulted 
in properly equipping the hospitals on both sides of the river. 
When Lieut. -Col. Edward J. Westcott, the acting Adjutant- 
General, visited the line of the regiment a few days later and in- 
spected the hospitals at both Newburgh and Ossining, he found 
that everything was running smoothly. Authority was given 
for the installation of necessary additional plumbing at both 
points, and for the heating, hghting and maintenance of the 
buildings. Colonel Myers purchased electric ranges for both 
hospitals, and authority was given by the Adjutant-General for 
the hire of civilian cooks and helpers. These were secured from 



HEALTH 



393 



the 15th (colored) Battalion, Major Tandy commanding, and 
served until the end of the epidemic. 

The spread of the influenza epidemic in the first three weeks 
is shown by the following table: 

INFLUENZA TABLE 
FIRST PROVISIONAL REGIMENT 

SEPT. OCTOBER 

29 30 I 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 II 12 13 14 15 

Reg. Hq 00000000002 5 5 6 6 5 5 

Supply Co 2 2 2 3 4 9 9 22 22 22 24 24 24 24 27 27 27 

ist Bn. Hq 00000000000 o o o o o o 

Co. A 00000012222 3 3 3 3 3 2 

Co. B 03332211111 I I I I I I 

Co. C 00000000000 o o o o o o 

Co. D 3 44544333 I I 3 4 5 6 7 6 

2nd Bn. Hq ooooiiiiiii i 2 2 3 i 4 

Co. E 00000000000 o 4 5 5 7 4 

Co. F 22333566644 6 7 7 7 II 18 

Co. G 4 7 13 16 20 23 35 36 40 39 39 44 49 51 48 47 46 

Co. H 00000000000 I 2 2 2 2 2 

M. G. Co o o o o o o o I 4 5 6 10 10 12 13 13 13 

3rd Bn. Hq 00000000000 o o o I I I 

Co. I ooooooiiiii 3 4 4 4 4 4 

Co. K 00000000000 o o o o o o 

Co. L 00000000000 o o o I I I 

Co. M... 33100000000 o I I I I I 

Total 14 21 26 30 34 44 57 73 80 76 81 loi 116 123 128 130 135 

To meet the crisis in the matter of extra transportation brought 
about by the transfer of patients to and between hospitals, 
Governor Whitman ordered the Poughkeepsie unit of the Woman's 
Ambulance Corps, Home Defense Reserve, into active service, 
without charge to the State, and these women, under command 
of Lieut. Spalding of Poughkeepsie, relieved what would have 
been a serious condition had the regiment been obliged to depend 
on regimental and Red Cross transportation solely. The motor- 
corps drivers were quartered with the nurses, first in the admin- 
istration building and later on the third floor of the hospital wing. 

While the Commanding Ofl&cer was on the northern end of the 
line, Captain Baldwin had been busy in New York in an eflPort 
to secure serum for the vaccination of the troops untouched by 
the malady. This was finally secured through the Rockefeller 
Foundation, and Captain Horgan, medical officer of the 3rd 
Battalion, inoculated most of the men on the east side of the river. 



394 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

While there was Httle of definite nature to work on as to the pre- 
ventive effects of the serum, it certainly did the men no harm 
and probably a great deal of good. In the case of the Headquarters 
Company, which was inoculated thoroughly, there were no losses 
whatsoever from Spanish influenza, although Sergt. Garland, then 
stationed at headquarters, later fell victim to the disease. 

The Red Cross equipped the hospitals with cots and beds, 
bed-linen, towels, pajamas, dressing-gowns and bed-socks, bed- 
jackets, influenza masks, sputum-cups and hospital parapher- 
nalia generally. 

Now for something about the arrangement of the hospital 
buildings. 

The building at Newburgh was not as well equipped for the 
work in the matter of space and arrangement as was No. 2 at 
Ossining, but Major Townsend, Captain Waterbury and the nurses 
worked wonders there. The lower floor was used for adminis- 
tration purposes as well as for wards. The two upper floors were 
devoted entirely to wards. The hospital was generally over- 
crowded, and to prevent the dreaded recurrence of the disease 
in men returning to duty too soon. Colonel Rose directed that 
convalescents be sent to No. 2 for observation and recuperation 
until entirely cured. 

At No. 2 the main study-room on the ground floor of the brick 
wing was used as the general ward, while acute cases were cared 
for in the smaller recitation-rooms at the front of the building. 
For a while the office of the head nurse was in one of the recitation- 
rooms off the main hall, but this was converted into a nurses' 
dining-room when the hospital kitchen was installed in the room 
next to it, and the office, diet-kitchen and dispensary were moved 
to one of the recitation-rooms off" the main ward. 

Convalescents were quartered in the old dormitories on the sec- 
ond floor, and orderlies were also quartered in the hospital building. 

In the beginning, the hospital, officers' and nurses' mess was 
cooked on the ranges in the basement of the administration build- 
ing, but this was changed with the installation of the electric 
ranges on the hospital side. The early days of the estabHsh- 
ment were full of difficulties for everybody, but the enthusiasm 
of the workers carried things through. 

On Oct. 15th there were 49 patients in Field Hospital No. 
I, with 28 orderlies and 5 cases of pneumonia. On the same date 
there were 88 enlisted patients at No. 2, most of them convales- 
cents, and 2 officers. There were 4 cases of pneumonia, and 29 
men as orderlies and attendants. 

Captain Waterbury himself was down with the influenza for a 




Company M Posts and Outposts 
Right center — Capt. Reginald Vanderwater, commanding Company M. 




Left column, top to bottom — Officers and their wives gather for fare- 
well to Capt. E. Madden Decker (extreme right), at Ossining head- 
quarters; Company H in winter; Olive Bridge, Millwood. Right column, 
top to bottom — Fischer; Unloading lumber at Burnham's mill for barracks 
construction; What Capt. Ted Lane had to do with a hoodless tent at 
Tuckahoe. 



IN MEMORIAM 




Left, top to bottom — Sergt. Leroy W. Levitt, Private Frank Poole. 
Miss Mae Craig, Nurse, F. H. No. {.— Middle— ?nv2itt Samuel Hallett, 
Corp. Clarence B. Miller, Private Carl Baley. Right — Sergt. Chas. Gar- 
land, Private Halsey Conway, Private Malcolm A. Northrip, Private 
Frank Baker. 




Illustrating the Course of the First Provisional's Memorial 
Boulder from Its Original Resting-place on the Shoulder of 
BoNTicou Crag in the Catskills to Sleepy Hollow Cemetery 



HEALTH 395 

few days and pulled away from every indication of a long sickness 
by sheer will power. 

Reference to the accompanying chart shows better than could 
mere words the rise and fall of the influenza epidemic in its first 
stage. At one time there were over 60 patients at Newburgh, 
but the number fell almost steadily, as all men able to move were 
fed into No. 2, where the influenza total reached 83 at one time 
about the middle of October, and the total number of all cases 
well over 100. It will be observed that the only death at Ossining 
hospital in the initial epidemic was a general case — typhoid. 
This typhoid case was isolated, but for a time its occurrence gave 
the medical oflBcers cause for worry. 

All of the deaths in the initial stage of the epidemic occurred at 
No. I — II in all. The crest of the disease was passed shortly after 
the 1st of November, and the Newburgh unit fed its convales- 
cents rapidly into the Ossining hospital. Low ebb was reached on 
the 19th day of November, when there were less than 20 patients, 
all told, at No. 2 and less than 10 at No. i. 

But the importation of more than 200 new men from the 4th 
Infantry had brought the disease back to the line in fresh and re- 
current form. The Red Cross, satisfied that the trouble was over, 
had withdrawn its representative, Capt. Charles Carlock, who had 
succeeded Major Lindsey, and preparations were being made to 
discontinue the No. i hospital when, with a bound, the indicator 
Hne of the epidemic ran up and up. From both sides of the river 
the men poured into the hospitals, and again the sinister, brief 
reports of the passing of the men began to come over the wires to 
Regimental Headquarters office from both hospitals. The first 
wave had taken Green, Barton, Peebles, Miller, Adamy, Hallett, 
Waldron, Pernice, Bennett, Baley, and Northrip. The second 
took Stephens, Tate, Nourse, Conway, Howell, Baker, Higgins, 
Gee, Poole, Fuller, Hellenack, Lynch, Garland, De Costa, Avery, 
and Lieut. Gomer Pritchard of Company G, and then, as it waned, 
Roberts and Neville. 

Throughout the influenza epidemic the Commanding Officer 
continued his detailed inspections of the line, keeping close watch 
on the conditions at barracks, with especial view to outposts. 
His theory of "follow up" was well demonstrated when, in one 
instance, he found at an outpost a half-dozen men, sick and 
running temperatures, who had not been reported for hospital 
attention. The men were sent into the hospital in the Commanding 
Officer's car, and two of them barely pulled through as it was. 
Another 12 hours in the loft of the outpost building would have 
meant death for the weaker. 
26 



396 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

And in the hospitals, by the bedsides of the stricken men, 
Colonel Rose was an inspiration to those who with laboring lungs 
and wheezing, gasping breath, fought for life beneath the oxygen 
cones. There was one boy in the Newburgh hospital who had 
apparently given up and was starting the long, long slide that 
meant oblivion. When the case was called to Colonel Rose's 
attention he had a heart-to-heart talk with the boy. 

"You aren't going to give up," he said. "This is a fighting- 
man's job. You keep on fighting. I don't want to think that 
there is any one of my boys who wouldn't see anything through 
to a finish. Keep on fighting. That's an order." 

A few days later, as the Colonel stood by a boy whose life was 
slipping away fast, despite all that oxygen and liquid stimulant 
could do, he felt a hand plucking at him from the next cot. Be- 
lieving it to be the aimless clutch that tells of approaching death, 
he turned to see the boy to whom he had given the order to keep 
on fighting. 

"Do you know me.?" asked the Colonel. 

"Yes." The lips barely moved. "I wanted to tell you. I'm 
fighting!" 

"That's the stuff. Keep it up. You'll be out of here in no 
time." 

And the boy did. While men died on either side of him, he 
carried out orders and pulled through. 

The recurrent wave reached its peak in the first days of Decem- 
ber and then gradually fell away, taking its heaviest toll of deaths 
in the last struggle of its existence. And it was in the closing days 
of the epidemic that the First Provisional lost its first officer by 
death in the field, Lieut. Gomer Pritchard of the Machine Gun 
Company, 4th Infantry, who had entered the field with his unit 
as an enlisted man and who had won his promotion and commis- 
sion on the line. 

Field Hospital No. i closed on the 20th day of December, and 
shortly thereafter, as the line melted down from the north, the 
medical officers went, one by one: Clinton, Horgan, Waterbury, 
and Benson, until only Major Townsend remained, with Miss 
Margaret S. Jamieson, of New Haven, Conn., Miss Agnes Gibbs, 
of Endicott, and Mrs. Martin R. F. Genet, of Ossining, as nurses. 

And now, for the first time in this history, there appears a 
name that is so dear to the heart of America. By its strange fate 
the First Provisional was bound closer than ever to the drama of 
the great war in having as one of its most loyal friends the "Little 
Mother" of Edmond Genet, first American ace of the Lafayette 
Escadrille to meet death in the cause of liberty above the battle- 



HEALTH 397 

lines of France. The letters of Edmond Genet are a part of the 
heart history of the great war, and the "Little Mother" to whom 
he wrote formed a part, and a very big and vital part, of the 
regiment's later-day work. She had given all that most women 
could give to the cause of America, but that was not enough. 
And when it became known that there was a need for nurses at the 
2nd Field Hospital, "Mother'' Genet took up her duties at the 
bedsides of the boys she loved so well. It was she who understood 
the ways of a sick boy better than almost any one else in the build- 
ing; she, ever smiling, with quaint little sayings and withal a 
sturdy determination to secure the best for the lads she cared for; 
she who found a very warm spot in the hearts of the officers, the 
men, the doctors and the nurses of the 2nd Field Hospital and 
the headquarters estabhshment, a place that conferred upon her 
the endearing "Mother." 

No mere printed words can express the appreciation of the 
regiment to those women who toiled by beds of fever, labored 
breath, pain and death in the long days and the longer nights of 
the last four months of the regiment's service. There is no reward 
that could repay that debt, unless it is the satisfaction of the scores 
and scores of boys who, because of tender nursing and good care, 
pulled through the Valley of the Shadow and came out on the 
bright slope to go to the world again, their hearts full of gratitude 
to those women who wore the red cross. 

And those who went through the Valley, and, with magnificent 
faith, over the top to the greater brightness of that other day, 
carried with them the joy that comes from the knowledge that in 
all love and beautiful service brave women have done their most 
for a man, right up to the gates of death. 

And that there be no doubt who these women were and of what 
they did for the officers and men of the First Provisional, read 
here the roster of service: 



FIELD HOSPITAL NO. I 

Miss Catherine MacAree, Miss Mae Craig, 

Miss Madeline Collins, Mrs. Brundage, 

Miss Mina Benoit, Miss Agnes Gibbs, 

Miss Ethel McKay, Miss Hazel Hurlburt, 

Miss Anna Marsh, Miss Marian Wynne, 

Miss Vern Morgan, Miss Bertha Chalopuka, 

Mrs. Josephine Phipps, Miss Georgiana Schmer, 

Miss Emma Hamill. 



398 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

FIELD HOSPITAL NO. 2 

Miss Agnes Gibbs, graduate nurse, 9 Cleveland Ave., Endicott. 
Mrs. Emma Goodwin, nurse's aid, 233 N. Y. Post Road, White 

Plains. 
Miss Jessie Long, nurse's aid, 3 1 N. Broadway, White Plains. 
Mrs. Blanche Jenkins, nurse's aid, 23 Highland Ave., Ossining. 
Mrs. Martha R. F, Genet, nurse's aid, 23 Highland Ave., Ossining. 
Mrs. Martha Turner, nurse's aid, Chappaqua. 
Mrs. J. J. Campbell, graduate nurse, Lawrence Park, Bronxville. 
Miss Julia La Beau, nurse's aid. Hillside Place, Tarrytown. 
Miss Prudence Cobb, nurse's aid. Hillside Place, Tarrytown. 
Miss Hazel L. Hurlbut, graduate nurse, loi New York Ave., 

Endicott. 
Mrs. PauHne Gunn, nurse's aid, 15 Walsorth Ave., Hartsdale. 
Miss Rose McHugh, graduate nurse, Glendomn Club, New York 

City. 
Miss Amanda Engle, graduate nurse, Glendomn Club, New York 

City. 
Miss Elizabeth Dobbins, graduate nurse, Glendomn Club, New 

York City. 
Miss Margaret S. Jamieson, graduate nurse, 764 George St., New 

Haven, Conn. 
Mrs. Elizabeth Moore, nurse's aid. White Plains. 

Throughout the entire epidemic the greatest of co-operation was 
given the Commanding Officer by Lieut.-Col. Edward J. Westcott, 
the Acting Adjutant-General, by Colonel J. Weston Myers, the 
Chief Quartermaster of the State, and by Col. Edward E. Powell, 
commanding the 4th Infantry, all of whom spent much time on the 
line, regardless of personal safety. 

While in the beginning officers and nurses generally wore the 
influenza-masks, constant contact with the disease made it lose 
some of its threatening aspect, and during the second wave of it 
there were few masks worn by any connected with the hospitals 
or the headquarters. 

It would not do to close this chapter without reference to the 
orderlies at both hospitals and their work during the crises of the 
epidemic. These boys, knowing, as they carried out one unfortu- 
nate victim after another, that their turn might come soon, never 
faltered in the face of the constant danger that beset them. Most 
of them, because of the constant inhalation of the germ-laden 
air of the wards, were intermittently feverish or suflFering from sore 
throats almost throughout their entire period of service, but the 



HEALTH 399 

fact that none of them were lost speaks well for the care they were 
given by those who had supervision over them. 

The 2nd Field Hospital continued until the 15th of February, 
with one or two pneumonia cases and one typhoid, almost up 
to the close of the doors. Christmas was the occasion of real 
festivities, with a big decorated and lighted tree on the platform 
in the main corridor, a Santa Claus who arrived in a specimen of 
First Provisional transportation drawn by six prancing mules 
instead of reindeer, and by gifts for every man of the hospital 
furnished by the Red Cross and by friends in the regiment and 
at home station. There were presents for the orderlies, for the 
nurses and for the doctors, and some joke presents for the hospital 
staff that made that afternoon a merry one. And through it all 
there was the half-light of the Christmas season, the healing smell 
of evergreens, and the joy of a real Christmas dinner set on long 
tables down the center of the ward for those who could move about. 

So ends the story of the regiment's greatest campaign, a cam- 
paign against death that walked with rapid stride through the 
thin ranks of the far-flung line, and that was checked only by the 
foresight and the executive ability of the Commanding Officer, the 
efficiency of the medical staff he had gathered about him, and the 
faithful, enthusiastic and untiring work of the many friends who 
brought up the reserves of relief in the hour of the organization's 
greatest need. 

AVERAGE SICK PERCENTAGE OF FIRST PROVISIONAL REGIMENT 

Month of September, 1917 2.01 

Month of October i . 86 

Month of November 1,72 

Month of December 2 . 20 

Month of January, 1918 4 . 40 

Month of February 4.32 

Month of March 2.86 

Month of April 2.32 

Month of May i . 99 

Month of June i . 97 

Month of July i . 70 

Month of August 1.95 

Month of September i . 87 

Month of October 8 . 64 

Month of November 5 . 99 

Month of December 7.31 

Average for sixteen months 3 .32 



DEMOBILIZATION 

THE reader who has followed the fortunes of the First Pro- 
visional Regiment through the pages that have preceded cannot 
have failed to be impressed with at least one fact — the tense, 
absorbing and almost monomaniacal interest of the regiment in 
its work. 

It was this single interest and this single effort which at the 
termination of actual hostilities and the post-armistice days of 
late November and early December enabled the Commanding 
Officer to submit without fear of question the work of the regiment 
to review by Major Livingstone, Adjutant-General of the De- 
partment of the East, in whose charge had been placed the de- 
mobilization of the troops guarding public utilities in this country. 
At the same time Colonel Rose submitted his plan for demobili- 
zation. 

From first to last the regiment had been without recognition, 
save of the most casual sort. The big temptation was to take 
advantage of the way that had been made smooth by the Aqueduct 
Citizens' Committee for a grand final parade and review in New 
York of the bronzed veterans with their wagon companies, motor- 
truck train, and patrol dogs. 

But Bolshevism and anarchy were rearing twin heads in the 
industrial centers, in the Philadelphia explosions, and in riotous 
street meetings of the great cities. There was nothing to guarantee 
safety to the Aqueduct should the entire force guarding it be 
withdrawn in one movement and with all of the public clamor 
attendant upon such a withdrawal. The great parade and review 
would have been the picturesque way. Colonel Rose's method 
was the tactical way; the military way. And it met with the ap- 
proval of Major Livingstone. 

It should be remembered that since the first days of its construc- 
tion the Aqueduct had never been without an armed force of some 
sort in charge of it. During the construction period the well- 
organized and well-mounted B. W. S. police had maintained care- 
ful supervision, and the Aqueduct had not been fully completed 
until 1916. Between that time and Feb. 3rd, 1917, there had been 
a force of B. W. S. police on duty, and the general public supposed 



DEMOBILIZATION 401 

that they were strung along the entire line. From Feb. 3rd, 1917, 
bayonets had bristled along the entire length of the Aqueduct. 
To think of precipitately withdrawing the entire guard at this 
most critical time, internally, was, in the belief of those who had 
guarded it, sheer folly — invitation to the evil-doer. 

History has proven that the hour of peace is the hour of the 
fanatic's opportunity. The hour of victory is the time of greatest 
hatred in the mind of the supporter of a lost cause. He may have 
hoped against hope that the thing he has stood for either in secret 
or openly would eventually triumph; but with the realization that 
it is doomed there springs in the mind of the crank the belief that 
he is chosen to avenge his cause. No proof of this is needed, for 
the story of Lincoln and McKinley is too plainly written to admit 
of doubt that in the period when war clouds are sweeping back 
lies a nation's greatest peril. 

It was with these things in mind that Colonel Rose, on Dec. 
9th, wrote to Mayor John F. Hylan of the City of New York on the 
subject of withdrawal of troops, as follows: 

OSSINING, N. Y., 

December 9th, 19 18. 

From: The Commanding Officer, First Provisional Regt., 

N. Y. G. 
To: Hon. John F. Hylan, Mayor of the City of New 

York. 
Subject: Withdrawal of Troops. 

I. The responsibility for the adequate protection of the 
water-supply system of the City of New York rests upon 
the Commanding Officer of the First Provisional Regiment; 
that responsibility cannot be delegated. 

II. During the past sixteen months not a scratch has 
marred the record of the First Provisional Regiment. Not 
only have the questions of administration and the prob- 
lems of adequate protection been answered and solved, but 
a searching investigation of the activities of aggressive 
enemy aliens in the region through which the Aqueduct 
runs has been concluded. The Commanding Officer from 
time to time has sought and obtained the co-operation 
of Municipal, State, and Military Police; the assistance 
of Secret Service and Intelligence Departments, and the 
help of sheriffs and district attorneys in the counties along 
the line of the regiment, together with the advice of Fed- 



402 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

eral authorities, both at Washington and the Department 
of the East at Governors Island. Officials of the City of 
New York have responded to the call of the Commanding 
Officer in every instance. 

III. At this time there remains, therefore, but the duty 
of the withdrawal of troops and the demobilization of the 
regiment in such a manner and at such a time as will best 
secure to the City of New York a continuity of policy 
which has made possible these results, and which in the 
future will furnish that measure of protection which those 
charged with the responsibility must guarantee to the 
City of New York. With the question of responsibility 
and policy after the withdrawal of the troops now guard- 
ing the Aqueduct, the Commanding Officer of the First 
Provisional Regiment has nothing to do, and will therefore 
not discuss. But the question and manner of demobiliza- 
tion of the First Provisional Regiment will be frankly dis- 
cussed. 

IV. The vulnerability of the Aqueduct, due to the fact 
that in the master minds of those who planned this great 
system, as well as in the minds of the people as a whole, 
there never flashed the thought that war would enter into 
the question of protection, is too well known to need further 
discussion. 

V. The activities of anarchistic reds, enemy aliens, 
cranks, and enraged actives is another matter. With the 
signing of the armistice the country must, as speedily as is 
consistent with good judgment, regain its normal; civil 
and not military authorities must shortly assume control, 
but in the period of transition there must be no relaxation 
of vigilance and no overt act which will relieve the military 
before the civil authority can acquaint itself with the task 
and make its position secure. 

VI. Plans, complete in detail, have been mapped and 
during the past weeks the situation has been freely discussed 
with Federal authorities. 

VII. Specifically, as a quarantine, due to the existence 
of Spanish influenza on the line of the First Provisional 
Regiment, was placed on the line of the regiment, at the 
request of the Commanding Officer of the First Provisional 
Regiment, Col. J. Weston Myers, Assistant to the 
Adjutant-General of the State of New York, personally 
called upon Federal authorities in Washington and secured 
permission for an officer stationed at Governors Island, 



DEMOBILIZATION 403 

Department of the East, within whose jurisdiction the 
Aqueduct lies, to visit the Hne of this regiment. This 
officer had the control of the troops guarding public utili- 
ties, shipyards, and munition plants, and the responsibility 
for the determination of the time when troops can be 
safely withdrawn. After a description of the task assigned 
to the regiment had been presented to him, and an exami- 
nation of maps indicating the vulnerable points and loca- 
tions where disturbances had occurred, an inspection of 
part of the line was made. 

VIII. The Federal officer then requested the Com- 
manding Officer of the First Provisional Regiment to ex- 
plain in detail the plan for demobilization and withdrawal 
of troops. After presentation, this plan was approved and 
permission granted to quote that approval. 



No announcement to the pubHc for discussion by em- 
ployees of the city as to the method or time of the with- 
drawal of troops. 

The necessity not only for the protection of the Aqueduct, 
but the preservation of property and accomplished trans- 
fer of the same to civil authorities co-equal. With this 
thought in mind and the care of the health of the men given 
due consideration, it is proposed to begin demobilization 
at once and make such a withdrawal as will give full measure 
of protection to Aqueduct and preservation of property 
of the City of New York. 

To begin such demobilization on or about December 
15th and gradually reduce the forces as speedily as con- 
ditions along the line and further developments will permit. 

John B. Rose, Colonel. 

With Colonel Rose*s letter before him. Mayor Hylan, on the 
nth of December, communicated with Governor Whitman on 
the subject of troop withdrawal from the Aqueduct in the follow- 
ing letter: 

City of New York 
Office of the Mayor 

December 11, 1918. 
Hon. Charles S. Whitman, Governor, 

Executive Chamber, Albany, N. Y. 
Dear Sir: 

In view of the fact that since the signing of the armistice 
and the suspension of hostilities in the great World War 



404 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

there have been — so far as I know — no attempts to dam- 
age or destroy public works, I beheve that the time has 
arrived when it will be proper to withdraw the detail of 
the New York State Guard from the duty of protecting 
the New York City watershed. 

It was at the request of Mayor Mitchel that this patrol 
and guard was established, and the First Provisional Regi- 
ment, Infantry, New York Guard, was assigned to the 
work. The expense incidental to such protection has been 
cast on the taxpayers of New York City, and is over and 
above the ordinary expenses of care, protection and main- 
tenance of the watershed. 

I believe that the time has arrived for the withdrawal 
of this military guard, and, therefore, respectfully ask you 
herewith to give necessary order for the withdrawal and 
removal of this military force under arrangements that 
can properly be made between the State officers and officials 
of the City of New York. The City has furnished and 
maintained buildings, vehicles and equipment for the 
military guard, using, I am advised, a battery of automo- 
biles for transportation of men and materials along the 
line, and has also installed a telephone system, a lighting 
system, and has made other outlays for the comfort and 
convenience of the military force. The daily cost of the 
guard has been approximately $5,000 and the protection 
under State jurisdiction has absorbed the man power of 
about 1,500 men. 

In relieving this force, it should be arranged that the 
establishment created and maintained at City expense 
should pass into the possession and control of the proper 
city authorities designated to take over the policing of 
the watershed. The City government has arranged for 
the assumption of police jurisdiction over tlie watershed 
and water supply system and will be pleased to carry out 
the transfer at the earliest moment. 

Very truly yours, 

John F. Hylan, Mayor. 

By telephone, Governor Whitman advised Colonel Rose through 
the acting Adjutant-General, Lieut.-Col. Edward J. Westcott, of 
the action of the Mayor, directing him to confer with the city, 
and leaving the matter of demobilization in his hands. On the 
15th, 100 men of the 4th Infantry were relieved from duty and 
returned to home station from Company E. 



DEMOBILIZATION 405 

On the 1 6th, Governor Whitman replied to Mayor Hylan as 
follows: 

December i6th, 1918. 

Hon. John F. Hylan, 

Mayor, 

New York City. 

Dear Sir: 

I have your letter of the nth inst., in which you say 
that you believe that the time has arrived for the with- 
drawal of the First Provisional Regiment, New York 
Guard, from duty guarding the New York City Aqueduct, 
which regiment was placed on that duty in August, 1917, 
by my orders upon the request of the then Mayor of New 
York City, made in accordance with the provisions of 
Section 115 of the Military Law, and in which you request 
that I issue the necessary order for such withdrawal. 

In reply thereto you are advised that I have this day 
directed that Colonel John B. Rose, Commanding Officer 
of the First Provisional Regiment, be instructed to confer 
at once with the proper officials of New York City with a 
view to the prompt relief of his command from active duty 
under such arrangements as m.ay properly be made be- 
tween himself and those officials. He will also be instructed 
to turn over to the police authorities of New York City the 
establishment created and maintained at City expense 
for the use of the First Provisional Regiment. 
Yours very truly, 

Charles S. Whitman, 
Governor. 

Briefly, the Comm.anding Officer's plan of demobilization was 
to melt down the line from the north, relieving first-block detach- 
ments from the east side of the river and extending unit lines so 
as to cover especially vulnerable structures on the sectors stripped 
by such block released. On the 17th, 2 officers and 60 enlisted 
men of Company G were returned to home station, and the fol- 
lowing day 35 enlisted men of Company C and 25 men from 
Headquarters Company were relieved from duty. On the 19th 
a transfer of 16 enlisted men from Company B was made to 
the Supply Company and 15 to the Headquarters Company, 
all former members of Captain Muller's command. This was fol- 
lowed on the same day by the release of 30 men from Company M. 



4o6 H-A-L-TT ! —WHA-ZAA ? 

On the 20th, Captain Johnson, Lieut. Therkildsen, and lOO 
enlisted men of Company G moved to the Company C sector, 
and 58 enlisted men of Company C and 30 enlisted men of D 
were returned to home station. Capt. J. J. Roche, with his 
lieutenants and 64 enlisted men of Company B, were returned to 
home station on the 22nd. 

So it was that on the 23 rd Colonel Rose wrote the following 
letter to Mayor Hylan: 

OssiNiNG, N. Y., 
December 23rd, 1918. 

From: The Commanding Officer, First Provisional Regi- 
ment, N. Y. G. 

To: The Hon. John F. Hylan, Mayor of the City of 

New York. 

Subject: Withdrawal of Command from Active Service. 

I. The entire responsibility for the withdrawal of 
troops guarding New York City's water-supply system has 
been laid upon the Commanding Officer of the First Pro- 
visional Regiment by direction of His Excellency, the 
Hon. Charles S. Whitman, Governor of the State of New 
York. 

H. Under a plan previously adopted, report of which 
was mailed to the Hon. John F. Hylan, Mayor of the City 
of New York, on December 9th, the withdrawal of troops 
is already under way, and at this date, between four and 
five hundred men have been returned to their home sta- 
tions. Additional troops will be relieved as speedily as con- 
ditions along the line and further developments will permit. 

HI. The Commanding Officer of the Fii'st Provisional 
Regiment is working in full accord with representatives of 
the Comptroller's Office and of the Commission of Water, 
Gas and Electricity, in the protection of the water-supply 
system and the care of the property of the City of New 
York, and he respectfully requests that a representative 
of the Police Department of the City of New York be 
directed to confer with the Commanding Officer, First 
Provisional Regiment, looking to the complete demobili- 
zation which must shortly take place. 

[Signed] John B. Rose, 

Colonel. 



DEMOBILIZATION 



407 



The remainder of the demobilization up to and including final 
withdrawal from actual guard duty on the line of the New York 
water supply is told best and quickest in the following chart 
which chronologically shows the disposal of the troops and the way 
in which the lower and most important end of the line was 
guarded up to the last moment. By following the transfers and 
releases, with reference to the sectional maps, the reader may 
trace this tactical withdrawal, which was made so quietly and 
so carefully that the thinning of the line was scarcely noticeable 
to the casual observer. 



TRANSFERS 

Dec. 15. — Lt. C. W. Higgs trans- 
ferred from Co. C to Supply Co. 
S. O. 217. 



RELEASES 



Dec. 17.- 



Dec. 18.— 



Dec. 19. — 16 enlisted men of Co. 
B transferred to Supply Co., 
and 15 enlisted men of Co. B 
to Hdqrs. Co. S. O. 218. 



Dec. 20. — Capt. J. W. Johnson, Lt. 
Therkildsen and 100 enlisted 
men of Co. G transferred to Co. 
C. S. O. 218. Capt. E. C. 
Gibbs relieved from duty as C. 
O. of Co. C and assigned as In- 
specting Officer, 1st Battn. S. 
O. 219. 



Dec. 22. — 



Dec. 24. — 



Lts. J. C. Moshier, V. Bergen, W. 
B. Klinger, J. R. Page and 100 
enlisted men of Co. E returned to 
home station. S. O. 217. 



Lts. Whritenour, Eaton and 60 en- 
listed men of Co. G returned to 
home station. S. O. 218. 



35 enlisted men of Co. C and 25 
enlisted men of Hdqrs. Co. re- 
turned to home station. S. O. 218. 



30 enlisted men of Co. M returned 
to home station. S. O. 218. 



Lt. Girdner and 58 enlisted men of 
Co. C returned to home station. 
S. O. 218. 30 enlisted men of 
Co. D returned to home station. 
S. O. 219. 



Capt. J. J. Roche, Lt. E. M. Kirk- 
patrick, Lt. R. V. O'Grady and 
64 enlisted men of Co. B re- 
turned to home station. S. 0.218. 



Lt. C. P. Servatius, of Supply Co., 
returned to home station. S. O. 



220. 



4o8 



H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 



TRANSFERS 



RELEASES 



Dec. 25. — 



Dec. 26. — 



Dec. 27. — Capt. Hinman and 30 
enlisted men of Co. H transferred 
to Co. D. S. O. 222. 



Dec. 28.- 



Dec. 29. — Lt. Suttle and 31 en- 
listed men of Co. H transferred 
to Co. D. S. O. 222. Capt. Hin- 
man takes command of Co. D. 
S. O. 222. Capt. A. N. Keener, 
of Co. D, transferred to Supply 
Co. S. O. 222. 



Dec. 30. — 



Dec. 31. — Capt. Murray, Lts. Pol- 
hemus, Lankau, Bowman and 
80 enlisted men of Mach. Gun 
Co. transferred to Co. I. S. O. 
222. Capt. Benson, M. C, 
transferred from 2nd Battn. 
Hdqrs. to Reg'tal Hdqrs. S. O. 
222. 



Lt. May, 3rd Battn. Hdqrs., re- 
leased. S. O. 281, A.-G. O. Lt. 
Weed, Supply Co., released. S. 
O. 256, A.-G. O. 



30 enlisted men of Co. D returned 
to home station. S. O. 221. 30 
enlisted men of Co. L returned 
to home station. S. O. 221. 



30 enlisted men of Co. I returned 
to home station. S. O. 222. Lt. 
F. W. Simons and 30 enlisted 
men of Co. A returned to home 
station. S. O. 222. Lt. S. L. 
Richards, of Co. F, returned to 
home station. S. O. 222. 



Lt. R. C. Launt, of Co. F, returned 
to home station. S. O. 222. 



Lt. J. Le Doux and 24 enlisted men 
of Co. D returned to home sta- 
tion. S. O. 222. 



Capt. S. Winters and 50 enlisted 
men of Co. E returned to home 
station. S. O. 222. 



Capt. J. J. Horgan, M. C, returned 
to home station. S. O. 220. Lt. 
H. F. Hofer, of Co. K, returned 
to home station. S. O. 222. Capt. 
Young and 49 enlisted men of 
Co. I returned to home station. 
S. O. 222. Major Clinton, M. C, 
returned to home station. S. O. 
222. Capt. Pierce, Lts. Reynolds, 
Smith and 40 enlisted men of Co. 
L returned to home station. S. 
O. 222. 



DEMOBILIZATION 



409 



TRANSFERS 

Jan. I, 1919. — Capt. A. H. West- 
cott relieved from duty as C. O. 
of Co. F and transferred to Sup- 
ply Co. S. O. 2. 



RELEASES 



Jan. 2. — Capt. Decker and 70 en- 
listed men of Co. F transferred 
toCo. M. 



Jan. 6. — 



Jan. 7. — Capt. Murray relieved 
from duty as C. O., Co. I, and 
transferred to Supply Co. S. O. 
3. 14 enlisted men of Co. M 
transferred to Co. D. S. O. 3. 12 
enlisted men of Co. I transferred 
to line of Co. G. S. O. 3. 



Jan. 8. — Capt. E. C. Gibbs relieved 
from duty as Inspecting Officer, 
1st Battn., and assigned to C. 
O., Co. I. S. O. 3. 



Capt. R. L. Vandewater, Lt. Wis- 
ner and 56 enlisted men of Co. 
M returned to home station. S. 
O. 223. Capt. G. B. Snowden, 
2nd Battn. Inspecting Officer, 
returned to home station. S. O. 
223. Non-com. Staff, 2nd Battn. 
returned to home station. S. O. 
223. 



30 enlisted men of Co. A returned 
to home station. S. O. 3. 



Lt. A. B. Suttle and 30 enlisted 
men of Co. D returned to home 
station. S. O. 3. 30 enlisted men 
of Co. K returned to home sta- 
tion. S. O. 3. 



Major C. J. Lamb and Lt. Bechtol, 
2nd Battn. Hdqrs., returned to 
home station. S. O. 3. Capt. A. 
H. Westcott, Supply Co., re- 
turned to home station. S. O. 8. 



Jan. 9.— 



Jan. 10. — 74 enlisted men of 
Hdqrts. Co. transferred to Sup- 
ply Co. S. O. 3. 



Jan. II. 



Capt. D. J. Kiernan and 42 enlisted 
men of Co. K returned to home 
station. S. O. 3. 



Capt. J. W. Johnson and 85 enlisted 
men of Co. C returned to home 
station. S. O. 3. 



410 



H-A-L-TT !— WHA-ZAA ? 



TRANSFERS 



Jan. 12. 



RELEASES 

Capt. W. E. White, 3rd Battn- 
Hdqrs.; Capt. A. N. Keener, 
Supply Co.; Lt. W. J. Bowman, 
Co. I; Lt. G. M. Rehm, Co. K; 
Lt. E. J. Lankau, Co. I; all re- 
turned to home station. S. O. 3. 
Capt. E. C. Waterbury, M. C, re- 
turned to home station. 



Jan. 13. — Lt. T. W. Therkildsen 
transferred from Co. C to Sup- 
ply Co. S. O. s. 



Jan. 15.— 



Jan. 16. — The detachment of men 
of the First Prov. Regt., left on 
the Aqueduct at the request of 
the City of New York, are con- 
solidated and hereafter will be 
known as Provisional Co. Q. 
Capt. Rowland Pell, Disbursing 
Officer, is, in addition to his 
other duties, assigned as CO. Co. 
Q. Lt. T. W. Therkildsen, Sup- 
ply Co., transferred to Co. Q. 
Capt. E. M. Decker, of Co. M, 
transferred to Co. Q, in charge 
of property from Hillview reser- 
voir to Harlem River siphon. 
Capt. T. T. Lane, relieved from 
duty as C. O. ist Battn., as- 
signed to Co. Q, in charge of 
property from Millwood Tunnel 
to Storm King. Capt. L J. Us- 
sicker, of Co. A, transferred to 
Co. Q. Capt. C. H. Hinman, 
of Co. D, transferred to Co. Q, 
both to assist Capt. Pell. Capt. 



Major F. L. Kuehnle, 3rd Battn. 
Hdqrs., returned to home station. 
S. O. 4. Capt. E. C. Gibbs, Co. 
I, returned to home station. S. 
O. 4. Sergt.-Major Hawkins, 3rd 
Battn. Hdqrs., returned to home 
station. S. O. 4. 



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Demobilization 



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DEMOBILIZATION 



411 



TRANSFERS 

A. S. Murray, Supply Co., re- 
sponsible for property along line 
of 2nd Battn., will take charge 
of men of Co. Q assigned to 2nd 
Battn. Total officers in Co. Q, 
6; enlisted men, 191. S. O. 4. Lt. 
C. Cass, Co. A, transferred to 
Supply Co. S. O. 5. Lt. R. F. 
Polhemus, Co. I, transferred to 
Supply Co. S. O. 5. 



RELEASES 



Jan. 21. — 10 enlisted men of Co. 
Q transferred to Prov. Supply 
Co. 



Capt. Edward G. Benson, M. C, 
returned to home station, effec- 
tive Jan. 21, 1919. S. O. 7. 
Lt. C. W. Cass returned to home 
station, effective Jan. 22, 1919. 
S. O. 7. 



Jan. 22.- 



74 enlisted men of Co. Q returned 
to home station. S. O. 7. 



Jan. 23.— 



12 enlisted men of Co. Q returned 
to home station. S. O. 7. 



Jan. 24. — 



Capt. A. H. Westcott, Supply Co., 
returned to home station, effec- 
tive Jan. 7, 1919. S. O. 8. The 
C. 0., Prov. Co. Q, will return 
to home station on Jan. 24; all 
enlisted men of the 12th Inf. in 
his command relieved Jan. 25, 
1919. S. O. 8. 



Jan. 25. — 



Capt. Ussicker of Co. Q returned 
to home station. S. O. 7. 27 
enlisted men of Co. Q returned 
to home station. S. O. 8. 



Jan. 31. — Sergt. Ham and Corps. 
Thornton and Weston trans- 
ferred from special duty with 
27 



Capt. Chas. Hinman and men of 
Co. Q under his command re- 
turned to home station. S. O. 9. 



412 



H-A-L-TT !— WHA-ZAA ? 



TRANSFERS 



2nd Battn. to duty with Prov. 
Supply Co., at Ossining, N. Y. 
S. O. 9. 



RELEASES 

Capt. A. S. Murray and men of 
Co. Q under his command re- 
turned to home station. S. O. 9. 
Capt. Elmer H. Miller and men 
of Prov. Supply Co., on duty at 
2nd Battn., returned to home 
station, with exception of Sergt. 
Ham and Corps. Thornton and 
Weston. S. O. 9. Major C. E. 
Townsend, Capt. T. T. Lane, 
Capt. Chas. W. Baldwin, Lt. 
Clarence W. Higgs, relieved from 
duty with ist Prov. Regt. S. O. 
10. 



Feb. I. — Capt. Howland Pell, 
Capt. E. Madden Decker, Lt. T. 
W. Therkildsen, all of Co. Q, trans- 
ferred to Field Staff, ist Prov. 
Regt. S. O. II. 



And thus it was that on the night of Feb. ist, 1919, after 
two years of armed occupation, the long line of the cut and cover, 
dipping siphons, and isolated shaft-houses on the mountain 
shoulders, ran silent and dark from Ashokan to Hillview. 

No measured tread of the sentry, no hoarse challenge in the 
darkness, no movement nor life on the no miles of the great 
artery that had stood between the Heart of the World and chaos. 
Only the looming bulks of deserted barracks, the bulge of the 
telephone-boxes above the culverts, and the 

* * * beaten path from 'Shokan 

To the lights of New York town, 
That the men of the Guard had pounded hard 

On the job of no renown. 



Came busy days at Ossining, the funnel through which the 
equipment of the dismantled line poured into the State Arsenal 
at New York City. And to the Supply Officer, Capt. Nicholas 
W. Muller, there fell the usual final task of the Quartermaster 
Corps, the picking up of all the loose ends. 

The magnitude of this work may be gathered from the bare 



DEMOBILIZATION 413 

consideration of the fact that 8,000 men had at one time and an- 
other in the regiment's history been responsible for equipment, 
and that more than 150 officers and detachments from 21 or- 
ganizations of the New York Guard had participated in the 
property situation. The Board of Survey, serving in the last 
days of the regiment, handled 162,000 pieces of Q. M. property. 
The service had been of such a nature that it admitted of no delays 
in movement or in transfer of troops or releases of men. It had 
been subject to all field campaign conditions save actual shot and 
shell, and the results in the Quartermaster Department were of 
such a nature as to make the work of property accounting and 
checking huge, although inevitable. And so it was that a large 
staff of clerks and junior officers was necessary in the work of the 
Quartermaster Department alone. 

To conclude the business of the regiment and to complete its 
records there remained on the administrative staff other than 
the Supply Department, Colonel Rose, Lieut.-Colonel Burnett, 
Captain Pell, Captain Hutton, Captain Towner, and Captain 
Lord. 

By the middle of March the heavy clean-up work was about 
finished. Captain Hutton and Captain Lord had been reheved 
from duty, leaving Lieut. Therkildsen with the promotion to cap- 
tain in the position of Regimental Adjutant. And at this time 
let something be said of Captain Therkildsen and his advance 
through the ranks of the regiment. Entering the line as a private 
in August of 19 1 7, he served through guard duty, and the paper- 
work of the Adjutant's office, with such ability and proven worth 
that he was an invaluable asset to the organization from first to 
last. This tribute from one who knew him better than any one 
else in the First Provisional. 

Since midwinter. Colonel Rose had been planning a reunion 
of the officers of the regiment at the conclusion of the organiza- 
tion's work, and March 23, 24 and 25 were set aside for the big 
affair. Invitations were sent out not only to all officers who had 
actually served on the line, but to those like Colonel Myers, 
Colonel Westcott, Captain Mull of the Adjutant-General's office, 
and Captain Bogardis of the Chief Quartermaster's staff, who 
had meant so much to the regiment in its days of need, to meet 
at Ossining headquarters, then maintained by a detail. 

Some of the delegates arrived Saturday night, most of them 
Sunday morning, and the remainder as the time went by. Sunday 
noon was marked by the first big get-together dinner in the old 
main ward on the first floor of the hospital wing. This room as 
well as the entire interior of headquarters had been transformed 



414 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

with flags, bunting, and flowers sent from the Macy estate by 
Superintendent Phelps. 

And it was at the first dinner that Colonel Rose heard from the 
officers of the regiment the final word of praise — final, because 
it came from men who had worked with him and under him in 
the best and worst days of the regiment's life. 

Immediately after the dinner the officers were conveyed by cars 
from the Motor Corps of America at Tarrytown to Sleepy Hollow 
Cemetery, where, in the presence of a large crowd of civilians as 
well as many relatives of those whose names appear on the bronze 
tablet, the First Provisional's Memorial Boulder was unveiled 
and dedicated by Capt. Charles Baldwin, the chaplain. 

Sunday afternoon the Veteran Officers' Association of the First 
Provisional Regiment was formed, and committees appointed to 
eflfect permanent organization. These committees reported the 
following morning, and officers were elected for the coming year, 
as follows; 

President, John B. Rose. 

First Vice-President, Lieut.-Col. William L. Burnett. 
Second Vice-President, Capt. John J. Roche. 
Secretary, Capt. T. R. Hutton. 
Treasurer, Capt. Rowland Pell. 
Chaplain, Capt. Charles W. Baldwin. 
Sergeant-at-Arms, Capt. Charles B. Cleary. 
Historian, Capt. D, J. Young. 



Monday afternoon was given up to athletics and general fun 
combined with business on the matter of unpaid vouchers. Mon- 
day night was marked by the Grid Iron Dinner, when the officers 
of the regiment and those not of the regiment were roasted and 
toasted without regard to rank. 

Early Tuesday morning the entire body left for New York 
by Motor Corps transportation, where porches on Fifth Avenue 
had been reserved by the regiment's ever-present friend. Inspector 
Underbill of the New York Police Department, from which the 
officers might view the parade of the recently returned 27th 
Division. It was altogether fitting and proper that this should 
terminate the reunion — this participation in the triumph of the 
division that had begun the work carried on to a finish by the 
First Provisional. 

Former members of the non-commissioned staff" held a reunion 
of their own in connection with the officers' reunion and partici- 



DEMOBILIZATION 41S 

pated in all events of the big affair at Ossining as well as witness- 
ing the parade in New York. 

Let the curtain fall as the officers and men of the First Provisional 
stand above the surging crowd masses in the bright sunshine of 
that March morning, with the airplanes droning overhead, and 
wave upon wave of helmets and bayonets beating up Fifth Avenue 
beneath the Arch of Jewels. It was the triumph of a State 
Militant in which those who looked on had also a part. 



IN MEMORIAM 

IN Ward 3 of Field Hospital No. 2 a boy lay dying. Does 
that convey the picture of a peaceful passing, the death 
of slowly closing eyes, quietly diminishing breath, as the tired 
traveler nears the journey's end? If so, it is not a true picture, 
for this was the hard, fighting, struggling kind of dying, wherein 
all force of will and all the desire of the ego for existence cry out 
against the remorseless enemy that, bit by bit, chokes out life- 
giving air, and with it life itself. 

Have you ever watched a candle-flame struggle for existence in 
a compartment from which all oxygen has been exhausted.? If 
so, you will remember the way of that flame in its last flickering 
moments as it leaped, died down, reached and leaped again for 
life, and so, struggling, went out in a little white curl of smoke 
from the blackened wick. 

Such was death by double lobar pneumonia resulting from the 
Spanish influenza that swept the world in late 191 8 and early 
1919. Influenza of itself caused no deaths, but it was this in- 
fluenza that developed the virulent, violent, so-called double 
pneumonia, more deadly to the armies of the United States than 
the German machine-guns; that turned huge hospitals and cities 
into pestilence centers. 

It was Spanish influenza, in its initial and resurgent phases, 
that took from the ranks of the First Provisional such heavy toll 
and precipitated the struggle for existence that is told elsewhere. 
And it was Spanish influenza that pinned Private Frank De Costa, 
of the 69th Infantry, attached to Provisional Company B, to his 
death-bed in Ward No. 3 of Field Hospital No. 2 on this third day 
of December. 

He had been dying since early morning. The day before, 
Major Townsend had said there was hardly a chance; that the 
dread disease was piling up terrific odds. For more than twenty- 
four hours De Costa had been fighting a losing battle. But he 
was not fighting it alone. 

Watching the critical cases in the hospital building on his 
many trips from the headquarters administration wing daily, 



IN MEMORIAM 417 

Colonel Rose had taken an absorbing interest in the fight between 
Hfe and death in Ward 3. He remembered De Costa from an 
incident on the line the night that the acting Adjutant-General 
of the State had been taken prisoner, and he was spending all of 
his spare time by De Costa's bed. The boy's mother, Mrs. 
Tousch, had been sent for and now stood at the foot of the bed, 
her eyes red with weeping, hair disheveled, hands clasped in a 
sense of impotence, watching the labors of Major Charles A. 
Clinton and Mrs. Emma Goodwin, the Red Cross nurse, who 
worked on either side of the bed. 

Earlier in the morning, before the mother arrived, De Costa 
had looked up into the face of the Commanding Officer and, after 
a terrific eflFort, he had framed his lips to form the word, "Carrie." 

"You want to see Carrie?" Colonel Rose asked. 

"Sister — Carrie," came the answer in a stertorous whisper as 
the racked lungs fiercely protested against the loss of breath nec- 
essary to form the words. "Long — Branch." 

"Who does she live with?" 

" Long — Branch — Beach." 

"Long Beach?" queried the Colonel, who believed that in the 
half-delirium of death the boy was confusing things. 

"No, Dr. — Beach — second column — telephone-book. Hurry!" 

Colonel Rose found the address and 'phoned for the sister. 
When he returned, with the word that the sister was leaving for 
the hospital, De Costa asked, "How — long?" 

"Four hours," said the Colonel. 

"I — can — ^wait," came the slow answer, in a husky, half- 
strangled whisper. 

And now De Costa was fighting against time. 

Through the wide-open window that filled the room with sweet, 
cold air the sufferer on his bed could see through slowly filming 
eyes the glory of the washed-blue heavens, sunlit and clear, with 
a beckoning promise against all pain and suffering. The room 
had been cleared of other patients against the death struggle. 
One had been removed by death itself. 

For a long time the silence of the room was unbroken save for 
the terrible wheezing of the laboring lungs, the bubble of oxygen; 
the suck of the blue lips and nostrils beneath the oxygen cone. 
The boy's fingers, that since morning had been turning a dark, 
purplish hue, held tightly the hands of the nurse. His face was 
getting darker and darker; only his eyes burned with the desire 
and the will to live beneath the half-glaze that was beginning to 
cloud them. 

Now and again a hypodermic; now and again a sip of whisky 



4i8 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

and water; ever the agony of breath, each gasp a warning that 
death was not to be denied. 

So the fight went on, the Commanding Officer of the regiment 
coming and going as his duties permitted. 

Frank De Costa was dying as he had lived. By the force of 
necessity an orphanage child throughout his early years, the 
charge of a boy-conservation unit in his late boyhood and early 
youth, he had found the State service early in the great war and 
had served long and well. Now he was repaying with the greatest 
gift in his power his debt to the public that had raised him and 
fathered him, the price of life itself in the public service. 

Early afternoon. The boy was dying fast. A few minutes at 
the best remained, when an urgent call from another ward took 
nurse and doctor to another bedside, leaving Colonel Rose and 
Orderly Neff to fight the battle in its last desperate rally. For 
more than an hour it went on, and then — 

Twenty minutes later his sister arrived. Frank De Costa had 
made good on his promise to live, but the sister had missed a 
train. 

But the Commanding Officer of the First Provisional Regiment 
had seen in the face of that dying boy in the last hour of terrific 
struggle for existence the symbol of the service itself; the epitomi- 
zation of the enlisted man heroic; the typification of the regiment, 
struggling as it always did against terrific odds; the spirit of those 
other fighting-men of the line who had placed their all on the altar 
of supreme sacrifice — not the blazing altar in the great cathedral of 
nations, but in the tiny chapel of the unknown martyrs, where no 
choirs sing, where no laurel wreaths are placed, and where the 
legend above the cross speaks of "The Father Who Seeth in 
Secret." 

And so it was that when the stricken mother turned in her 
grief with the question, "Where shall I bury him.? I have no 
home — no money," Colonel Rose answered for the regiment. For 
he had reached a conclusion. De Costa, typifying the enlisted 
man of the regiment, should be honored as such. The indication 
of Providence was unmistakable. 

Throughout the service of the regiment, in a score of instances, 
the preordination of its course had been emphasized with un- 
mistakable force. With those close to the Commanding Officer 
it had come to be considered as certain that all things were set and 
ordered. And so with De Costa, as the events of the next twenty- 
four hours showed. 



IN MEMORIAM 419 

For within that twenty-four hours a regimental funeral had 
been ordered, the officers of the regiment had taken the boy's 
mother under the regimental wing and had furnished her with a 
home until the conclusion of the service; WilHam Rockefeller 
had presented the organization with a plot in historic Sleepy Hol- 
low Cemetery on the shore of Tappan Zee for its homeless dead, 
and a memorial had been decided upon. 

By a vote of the regimental mess, ratified by the line, it was 
determined that the resting-place of Frank De Costa should be 
the resting-place of all other men of the regiment dying without 
home or friends; and that from the heights of Bonticou Crag, on 
the Company F line in the Shawangunk Mountains, the regiment 
would take a boulder that should stand as a monument to all of 
the men of the organization who had died in the service. 

To no mere private in military history has there been accorded 
such a burial ceremony as to Frank De Costa, who typified in 
that regimental burial of Dec. 5th the regiment's enlisted 
dead. It was shortly after nine o'clock on that bright morning 
of sunshine and blue sky when the wail of the dead-march an- 
nounced to the citizens of Ossining that the funeral procession 
was beginning to move. And then: 

With a slow, cadenced step, band, field music, firing-squad, 
staflF, non-commissioned staff, Headquarters Company, Supply 
Company and two skeleton battalions, flag-draped casket and 
mourners, wound slowly down the historic post road. 

On it moved to that little gray stone church that stands 
between the gates of the Sleepy Hollow Country Club — Saint 
Mary's, Scarborough. It was the march of the present in the 
past, along the highways of the armies of Washington, to the 
country of Washington Irving, to the little stone church whose 
ivy mantle sprang from the shoots brought by the great American 
author from the home of Sir Walter Scott. The morning sunlight 
flashed silver on the shining instruments of the band; golden on 
the field music behind, on the long lines of glinting rifle-barrels 
above the snaky column of olive drab. 

The columns broke and swung to regimental front on the post 
road opposite the church, and down the long line held at 
rigid "present" moved all that was left of the man who had died 
in Ward 3. Then the half-light of the church interior, the 
solemn purples of the Advent hangings, the sob and swell of the 
great organ beneath the touch of Private Lacey, of headquarters, 
and the voice of the chaplain receiving the flag-covered casket 
at the church door: 

"I ani the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord." 



420 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

It was the Commanding Officer of the regiment who supported 
the black-veiled form of the mother, and closely following in the 
slow march up the church aisle came staff officers with the sister, 
the grandmother and the aunt. 

The church filled to overflowing and the Episcopal rites for 
the burial of the dead went on. Never was there greater mean- 
ing in those last solemn words of the service at the church than 
on that morning, speaking, as they did, of these men who had 
died without glory, "Forasmuch as ye know that your labor is 
not in vain in the Lord." 

Then rank after rank of solemn faces lifted to the chaplain as 
he gave his brief, strong message, the symbolization of all the 
regiment's dead in the dead who lay beneath the flowers of his 
comrades before the chancel steps. 

The triumphal strains of the ^^Marseillaise,'* the recessional, and 
the reformation of the line — the procession moved on down the 
shore of the Hudson to that cemetery which, of all others, is in 
its very essence American. It was fitting that the way should lead 
through the stone arch beneath the first Croton Aqueduct, where 
the line said farewell to its own. On, and so into the cemetery, 
past the long lines again at the "present," down to the edge of the 
newly opened grave, and then the last words as the casket was 
lowered into the earth; sharp, low- voiced commands and three 
volleys rang out. 

Then clear and sweet, with all the sadness of the hour, bespeak- 
ing the farewell of the service to all those who had passed on and 
were still to pass, the bugle that had sounded "Taps" at the tomb 
of the victor of Appomattox, swelled in the hush of noon. And 
as the last notes died there sounded from the distant wooded hill- 
side a sweet, faint, lingering, silver echo. 

To the cadenced clash of arms the columns formed and swung 
away. No quick-step here; nothing but the stoHd tramp — tramp 
of the marching feet, speaking of the tread that had never lost 
its measure from one end of the great waterway to the other since 
the August of 1917 on the line that had demanded and had re- 
ceived its sacrifice of human bodies that it might remain unbroken. 
And the brown columns turned back to the line. 

From this line there came in the days that followed the word 
that the men of the regiment had pledged themselves to the 
erection of the memorial to their dead. With a spirit that needed 
not urge, but curb, they gave their scanty service pay, and the 
officers of the regiment responded. 



<i 



IN MEMORIAM 421 

Shouldering down from the domain of the Catskill sovereigns, 
a rugged, time-beaten range of mountains, still bearing their 
aboriginal title, the Shawangunks, swing southward to final foot- 
hold in Orange County, a great outworks to the mighty for- 
tresses of the ages that tower in the north. 

And where the Catskill Aqueduct, rising from its swing through 
the Rondout Valley, emerges on the southern side of the Sha- 
wangunks, the broken face of Bonticou Crag lifts its head, white 
and shattered in part by the blast of the tunnel men, in the great 
niche of the range. Each year a Mecca for those who seek health 
and rest in the historic peace-conference home by Lake Mohonk 
above the clouds, Bonticou, like its neighbor. Sky Top, has from 
the beginning stood outpost of the greater mountain peaks to the 
north. 

On its summit only the stunted pines and the rock moss flourish, 
and the winds of all the heavens cut keen and clear. Along its 
shoulders, in the little valleys, lies the debris of the ages, huge 
fragments of gneiss conglomerate shaken from the weather-worn 
escarpment in earth tremors that were before seismograph was 
made, or split free in hundred-ton chunks by the frosts of a 
thousand winters. If it be true that the green Hchenous corus- 
cations that mottle the boulder flows of the mountain edges grow 
as slowly as those who dwell among the mountains say, then it is 
a thousand and more years since the last huge monolith roared 
from the rocky battlements to the great piles below. Man has 
wrought havoc on the face of the mountain, where gaunt skeletons 
of weather-beaten cribbing, frame-work and trestling, overgrown 
tie-ribbed grades, and fast-settling shanty roofs tell of the great 
camp that flourished there when the Aqueduct was built; of the 
great boring-machines, the excavators, and the concrete-mixers 
that flourished on the mountain-side above the waste-dumps of the 
valley. But a scant half-mile up from the Aqueduct itself, where 
the last post of the First Provisional is still marked by the hard- 
packed earth of the cut and cover, back and up along the west 
shoulder of the mountain, on the Smiley estate, the peace of the 
ages lies on those gigantic mounds of titanic rubbish. 

And it was here, on Friday the 13th, that Lieut. Robert F. 
Polhemus, of the ist Infantry, chosen for the task because of his 
knowledge and ability as an engineer, began his work of bringing 
to the valley, hundreds of feet below, the rock from the Moun- 
tains of Peace that was to mark the peace of those who had given 
their all on the altar of war. 

Balanced on the summit of a huge mass of aeonic erosions, 
some thirty feet above the dry bed of a mountain brook and close 



4^± H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

to the frowning wall of the crag itself, Lieut. Polhemus found what 
he sought — a great arrow-headed fragment of Paleozoic cataclysm 
shaken from its parent ledge in some shudder of the earth, so nicely 
poised that it tottered and teetered incongruously to the action 
of a pry in the hands of a single man. 

It was this rock, covered with the age-long growth which told 
of a thousand years of separation from the mountain wall, that 
had since the beginning of all time been destined to tell for all 
time to come of those who had given their lives on the line below, 
where glory was not. 

Standing by the side of the monolith and looking down the 
narrow valley across the boulder rubble to the distant plain of the 
Walkill, Lieut. Polhemus faced his task. Less than two miles 
away on the line of the crow's flight was the nearest railroad siding. 
But between him and that siding were seven miles of travel at 
best, the first half-mile through the forest and along slippery 
grades and slopes, where only man and the sure-footed mule might 
find foothold. To topple this rock into the little valley at his 
feet was but the beginning. Immediately there rose before him 
the sharp bank of the valley leading to the ridge on which the 
rock must begin its downward journey. From its base to its tip 
the fragment was something over fourteen feet in length. Across 
the base the great arrow-head was more than eight feet and it 
was more than three feet through. Calculated on granite com- 
putations, it could not weigh less than a dozen tons, probably 
much more. And at his service were no donkey-engines, no steam- 
hoists, no tramways — nothing but the crudest of material, block, 
tackles, skids, mules and man power. 

The ignorant enthusiast would have broken himself, his men and 
his equipment in the first few days. The average experienced en- 
gineer would have demanded modern machinery; the veteran 
without motive of service would have abandoned the task as an 
impracticable one. Lieut. Polhemus did none of these. Accepting 
battle with the inanimate, in full knowledge of its odds, he quietly 
selected such crude weapons as were available. 

Think of some calmly conservative man you know. Thin his 
hair a bit on top, endow him with a pair of keen, blue, fun-loving 
eyes, a pair of gold-mounted spectacles, and long, vigorous jaws 
and deep sense of humor, and you have visualized in part this man 
who was to undertake an Augeanism typically First Provisional. 

Lieut. Polhemus lived in Poughkeepsie, and that meant that he 
had friends in the Hudson Valley. From Edgar V. Anderson and 
from the Cannon Trucking Company in Poughkeepsie, from the 
U. S. Shipyard at Newburgh, and from his many other friends he 



IN MEMORIAM 423 

borrowed, hired at nominal cost, or bought for low prices from the 
memorial fund, the things that he needed — a 400-foot inch-line 
and block, a 200 foot-line, two 20-foot chains of half-inch links, 
120 feet of vari-sized cable, two 15-ton racks, 120 feet of eight-by- 
eight spruce skids, and of smaller lumber a half wagon-load. 

It was two miles to the post of Company F, and arrangements 
must be made for the serving of the noonday meal on the mountain. 
Even then the men must go up and down steep, breath-taking 
grades four times daily. It was to be no small task, even with 
picked volunteer detachments. These men were uninitiated, un- 
skilled in this sort of work. Most of them had been with the line 
since its beginnings and they were obsessed by its spirit and spunk, 
but they must learn the technique of this new work. 

And it was not as though all winter remained in which to move 
the rock to its final resting-place in the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery 
on the shore of Tappan Zee. At any time the mobilization might 
begin which would within a few weeks strip this sector of men and 
make the service of the volunteers on the mountain-side impossible. 
Not only must Lieut. Polhemus struggle with crude implements, 
huge inanimate bulk and unskilled labor; he must battle with time. 



And, like all the struggles of the regiment, that battle culmi- 
nated in success, although at what cost of heart-breaking toil, and 
with what handicaps, disappointments and difficulties, only the 
men of Lieut. Polhemus' detail, who dubbed themselves the"Hard- 
Boileds," alone know. A month of incessant battle with the 
dogged inertia of the huge bulk and struggle in the mountain 
storms and fogs had passed into the log-book of time before the 
monolith had moved the first half-mile of its journey that brought 
it through the slippery trails and passes into the open country 
below. Half-inch chains snapped under the terrific pressures that 
uprooted trees eight and ten inches in diameter as the big wedge 
moved along the shoulders of the mountain on its skids; equip- 
ment gave and broke; men and mules floundered in the easily 
thawing top-soil of the woods, as day after day of rains and gray 
enveloping mist converted the deep forests through which the 
men fought their way by brute strength, into a gray land of 
shadows and ghostly shapes. Once the big load broke free of 
all control and lunged down the mountain-side, smashing its 
heavy cradle as it crashed through saplings three and four inches 
thick. And day after day came difficulties, mishaps and delays, 
with the big rock sometimes moving as little as eight feet in an 
entire day. 



424 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

But at last it was brought to the Aqueduct and the big stone- 
truck that awaited it. When six teams of mules failed to start it, 
horses were secured and it was hauled across the cut and cover to 
the Mohonk road. 

Then sliding, skidding, often swaying perilously, burying the 
wheels of the truck hub-deep in the rain-softened mountain road, 
it went down into the valley of the Walkill, every yard a struggle 
wherein the law of gravitation and the law of frictional resistance 
fought battles royal with the "Hard-Boileds," lending their forces 
now to one and now to the other. 

To the shout of drivers, the lunge and struggle of now five, now 
ten teams, the creak of straining leather and the rumble of the 
heavy-laden truck, the memorial boulder moved down and across 
the flats of the Walkill along the Springtown road, and so to the 
Walkill Valley railroad crossing. 

There, on Thursday, the 23rd of January, it was met by the 
New York Central's wrecking-crew from Kingston, and the 
mighty wedge and its wooden cradle were, after two hours of toil, 
lifted free from the truck and placed on a Grand Trunk flat. 

It was a great moment for the "Hard-Boileds." As one of the 
sergeants watched the swing of the great fragment to the flat car, 
a pleased grin overspreading his features, one of the ofliicers who 
looked on said: 

"Looks pretty good, doesn't it. Sergeant?" 

"You're damn whoop — " began the sergeant in enthusiastic 
relief, and then, as he turned in an agony of embarrassment, "I 
mean yes, sir. It does." 

And at this point it may be well to speak of those men who met 
and overcame all obstacles, and who with sheer drive and push sent 
the rock through its hard places to its ultimate destination. Not 
without reason had they dubbed themselves the "Hard-Boileds." 
In the heart-breaking struggle of the mountains they had come 
to a pride in battling with this huge weight, and it was at their 
request that they saw it finally settled. These are the men who 
saw it through: Sergeant Lown, Binghamton; Corp. LeRoy 
Kent, Binghamton; Corp. James W. Barnes, Johnson City; Pri- 
vates H. Robinson, Binghamton; Ellsworth Smith, Johnson City; 
Harold E. Potter, Binghamton; Laverne Gill, Deposit; M. E. 
Harrington, Greene; Joseph Crooker, Trumansburg; Vernon Hess, 
Binghamton; Robert Oltz, Ithaca; and James W. Perry, Deposit. 

The rock detail moved southward and into headquarters at 
Ossining, meeting the big boulder on the Tarrytown siding after 
it had made a record-breaking journey from the Walkill via 
Kingston, Weehawken float and the Hudson division. Dinkel 



IN MEMORIAM 425 

& Jewell, of Tarrytown, volunteered for the movement of the 
boulder the two miles to the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, where a 
massive concrete footing had been prepared, their big motor- 
tractor and stone-truck and furnished men to assist in the move- 
ment. On the morning of Tuesday, the 28th, it moved out from 
the Tarrytown freight-yards and through the lower village to the 
historic post road. 

Turning into Phillipse Manor, the load sought the easier grades, 
and just after noon the First Provisional's memorial boulder was 
halted on the post road opposite the grave of Private Frank De 
Costa. 

Since the First Provisional's lot was at the front of the cemetery 
and nearest the road, the truck was backed as far into the em- 
bankment as possible, a track was built to the stone wall, and the 
boulder moved by winch and tackle to the edge of the footing 
in the course of the next day. On the night of the 31st, when the 
last of the men of the First Provisional were leaving the line of the 
Aqueduct, the huge gray wedge stood firmly on its concrete foun- 
dations, lifting its ragged head some ten feet above the ground and 
towering over tKe smaller headstones of the vicinity against the 
forest background. The big task was over. 



It was on March 23rd when, in the presence of the officers of 
the regiment gathered for the reunion at Ossining headquarters, 
the First Provisional's Memorial Boulder and its great bronze 
tablet were unveiled in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery. The inscrip- 
tion on the tablet is as follows: 



THIS ROCK 

SYMBOLIZING THE REGIMENT WHICH RAISES IT 
HEWN FROM BONTICOU CRAG ON THE LINE OF 
THE CATSKILL AQUEDUCT BY THE STORMS OF AGES 
WAS ERECTED HERE MARKING THE SPOT WHERE ONE OF 
ITS FATHERLESS BOYS WAS BURIED BY THE REGIMENT 
AT THE REQUEST OF HIS MOTHER, A HELPLESS WIDOW 

AND 
AS A MEMORIAL TO THOSE WHO MADE THE SUPREME 
SACRIFICE FOR THEIR STATE IN SERVICE WITH THE 

FIRST PROVISIONAL REGIMENT 

GUARDING THE 100 MILES OF THE WATER 

SUPPLY OF THE CITY OF 

NEW YORK FROM ASHOKAN TO HILLVIEW DURING 

THE GREAT WAR 
1917 1918 1919 



426 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

Then follow the name of Frank De Costa and the names and 
ranks of the other men of the regiment who died in the great 
work. 

What of those men whose names stand imperishable on that 
great bronze tablet which, after a thousand years shall have passed, 
will still glow dusky red in the last rays of the setting sun across the 
ripples of the Tappan Zee ? What of their lives and deaths ? It is 
the task of the chronicler to answer in the remaining pages of this 
chapter. 

Be it understood that there is no pretension of a full and com- 
plete record of the life of each man. After months of corres- 
pondence with home station and nearest surviving relatives the 
results seem meager enough. But there is one epitaph which ap- 
plies to all and beside which personal history fades into insignifi- 
cance. "He gave all that he had," is the ultimate tribute. 

Of those who died or were killed in Aqueduct service, thirty 
were the victims of pneumonia resulting from Spanish influenza 
in the late fall and early winter of 1918. And of these one was a 
commissioned officer. So far as is possible the life history of 
these men before their entry into service is givert. In some cases 
these obituaries are from their comrades, and are so indicated. 



Lieut. Gomer J. Pritchard was stricken with influenza on the 
4th of December, when the recurrent wave of the malady was 
raging on the line of the First Provisional, and died just ten days 
later in St. Luke's Hospital, Newburgh. 

Lieut. Pritchard was born at South Gibson, Pa., May 6th, 1895. 
In 191 2 he enlisted in the United States Navy and served for 
over three years. On Aug. 8th, 1917, he enlisted in the New York 
Guard and was detailed immediately for duty with the First 
Provisional Regiment. 

After having served for over a year as sergeant in the company 
commanded by Capt. John W. Johnson, he was commissioned 
Lieutenant of the Machine Gun Company, 4th Infantry, and 
continued on active duty with the First Provisional Regiment 
until the time of his death. I 

Lieut. Pritchard is survived by his wife, who was Miss Lucile J 
Lindsay, of Factoryville, Pa., his parents and four sisters and 
three brothers. 

Lieut. Pritchard was the only commissioned officer of the 
First Provisional Regiment to answer the call of the Grim Reaper, 
and his loss was keenly felt, especially by the men with whom he 
had served so long and well. 



IN MEMORIAM 




Upper left — Sergt. Lemuel Landpheir. Right — Corp. Antonio Pernice. 
Center — Private James F. Burke. Lower, left to right — Harry W. Reynolds, 
Percy J. Howell, Clayton Neville. 



IN MEMORIAM 






Topy left to right — George Nourse, Sergt. Charles T. Peebles, Benvenido 
Fajardo. Center — Melville Harrington, John B. Green. Lower — John] 
L. Barton, Sergt. L. Owen Adamy, Chester Bennett. 



IN MEMORIAM 




Left column, top to bottom — George Albert Tate, Arthur Rourke, 
Harry Stephens. Center column — Raymond Gee, Thomas A. Stokes, 
Fred. T. Higgins. Right column — Howell Roberts, James M. Waldron, 
Martin Ryan. 




Left column, top to bottom — Private Leslie C. Fuller, Private Aloysius 
Kelly. Center column — Private Leslie Hellenock. Right column — Private 
Earl Wier, Private Frank De Costa. 



IN MEMORIAM 427 

Private Merville Harrington, Company H, 4th Infantry, at- 
tached to Provisional Supply Company, died in Field Hospital 
No. 2, Feb. 28th, 1919, of pneumonia following influenza. 

Private Harrington was born at Smithville, N. Y., January 6th, 
1901, oldest son of Mr. and Mrs. Byron Harrington. He is sur- 
vived by his mother, one sister and two brothers, his father having 
died during the time Private Harrington served with the First 
Provisional Regiment. 

When Regimental Headquarters asked for volunteers to bring 
the Memorial Boulder from Bonticou Crag to Sleepy Hollow, 
Private Harrington was one of the first to answer. He worked 
with the rock gang until they had accomplished their purpose 
and the big boulder had found its last resting-place on the plot of 
the First Provisional Regiment in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery. 

Private Harrington was one of a detail from the Supply Com- 
pany sent to Peekskill to do some clean-up work there, when 
influenza, in one of its characteristic jumps, found this isolated 
group and sent them all into Field Hospital No. 2 and finally 
added Private Harrington's name to the long list already on the 
big Memorial Boulder. 



Sergt. Lemuel Landphier, Company I, ist Infantry, attached 
to Provisional Supply Company, died in Field Hospital No. 2 
March 8th, 1919, of pneumonia following influenza. 

*'The General," as he was known to the men and officers of 
the First Provisional Regiment, was the oldest member of the 
New York Guard on active duty and was the last man to answer 
the final roll-call while in service with the First Provisional 
Regiment. 

Sergt. Landphier was probably better known than any other 
non-commissioned officer on the line, and his death, coming at 
the close of the long period of service of the regiment, cast a deep 
gloom over Headquarters. 

He first enlisted in Company E, ist Regiment, Infantry, N. G., 
N. Y., May 28th, 1883, and served almost continuously until the 
time of his death. He came on the line of the First Provisional 
Sept. 8th, 1917, and served as company clerk of Provisional Com- 
pany F, commanded by Capt. E. Madden Decker, until that 
company was returned to home station, Jan. 24th, 1919, when he 
was transferred to Regimental Headquarters to assist the regi- 
mental non-commissioned staflF in the final disposition of regi- 
mental paper-work. 

Sergeant Landphier is survived by one daughter. Miss Mabel 

L. Landphier, of Middletown, N. Y., his wife having died in July, 

28 



428 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA~ZAA ? 

1918, while Sergeant Landphier was in service. Born Jan. 2nd, 
1852, at Rhinebeck, New York, he served his State long and well, 
and his wish, so often expressed during his last days of service, 
that he might answer his last order from his Great Commander 
while engaged in active duty, was fulfilled when he heard "Taps" 
sound the evening of March 8th, 1919. 



Private John D. Greene, Company L, 4th Infantry, of Elmira, 
N. Y., detailed to Provisional Company G, died in Field Hospital 
No. I, Newburgh, Oct. 5th, 191 8, of pneumonia following 
influenza. 

Private Greene was born in Savona, N. Y., in November, 1900. 
He made his home with Mr. and Mrs. Henry Smith, of 359 
Division Street, Elmira, as his father died when he was four 
years old. 

He graduated from grammar-school and spent two years in 
high school, after which he went to work for Roemmelt Brothers' 
Meat Market, where he remained until he was detailed for special 
duty on the New York Aqueduct, Sept. 3rd, 1918. He is 
survived by his mother and stepfather, Mr. and Mrs. Bert Rhine- 
hart, and one sister. Miss Margaret Greene, all of Savona. 

The remains were sent to Elmira, where Captain Sharf of 
Company I took charge. He was buried at Savona with full 
military honors. The deceased was a member of St. Luke's 
Congregational Church of Elmira, N. Y. 



Private John L. Barton, Machine Gun Company, 4th Infantry, 
of Endicott, N. Y., detailed to Provisional Company G, died in 
Field Hospital No. i, Newburgh, Oct. 7th, 1918, of penumonia 
following influenza. 

Private Barton was born in the town of Union in 1898. He 
was formerly employed by the Endicott- John son Co., and was 
always found a willing worker. 

He was a member of the Sons of Veterans at the time they were 
called into service. He enlisted with the rest of the company 
on Aug. 8th, 1917. During his enlistment I had the pleasure of 
being with him most of the time. He was a hard worker for the 
good of the company, always paying strict attention to his duties, 
whatever they were. He was well liked by his comrades and will- 
ing to do whatever he could for their good. 

During the cold nights of last winter, when he was called for 
his turn of duty, he would respond with the same eagerness that 
made him the good soldier that he was. He became ill with 
Spanish influenza and was taken to St. Luke's Hospital, Newburgh, 



IN MEMORIAM 429 

on Sept. 30th. He was transferred to Base Hospital No. i, where 
he died Oct. 6th. His body was taken to Endicott and buried 
with the highest honors that a soldier can be given, a military 
funeral. 



Sergt. Charles T. Peebles, Machine Gun Company, 4th 
Infantry, of Binghamton, N. Y., detailed to Provisional Company 
G, died in Field Hospital No. i, Newburgh, on Oct. 8th, 1918, of 
pneumonia following Spanish influenza. 

Sergeant Peebles was born in Marathon in 1894. I" ^^^ early 
life his people moved to Johnson City, where they resided at the 
time of his death. Sergeant Peebles first enlisted in F. A. Johnson 
Camp, Sons of Veterans Reserve, in Johnson City, and on the 
eighth day of August, 1917, enlisted in Battery C with the other 
members of the company and was placed on active service guard- 
ing New York City's water supply. 

He was first stationed at headquarters camp at Nelsonville. 
While stationed there he won a promotion to corporal. So faith- 
fully did he perform his duties that, after moving from Yonkers 
to Walkill, he was promoted to sergeant on Sept. ist. 

Previous to his enlistment he was employed by the Endicott- 
Johnson Company, shoe manufacturers of Johnson City, N. Y. 
By the death of Sergeant Peebles the company has lost one of its 
best comrades. He was faithful to his duties and ready to help 
his fellow-men. He is survived by his parents, four sisters and 
two brothers. 



Corp. Clarence B. Miller, Machine Gun Company, 4th In- 
fantry, of Binghamton, N. Y., detailed to Provisional Company 
G, died in Field Hospital No. i, Newburgh, Oct. loth, 1918, 
of pneumonia following influenza. 

Corporal Miller was thirty-two years old, having been born 
at Nichols, N. Y., in 1886. By trade he was a felt-maker and 
prior to his enlistment was employed by the Felter's Company, 
of Johnson City. He was sworn into service on the 8th of August, 
1917, and during eleven months' tour of duty was located at 
Garrison and Indian Brook outposts of the Nelsonville Sector, 
where he proved faithful to all duties imposed during the long 
and severe winter. Corporal Miller was also at Yonkers, and upon 
the removal of the company to Walkill was given the responsi- 
bilities of a corporal, in which capacity he served until the time 
of his fatal illness. 



430 H-A-L-TT!— WHA-ZAA? 

For more than fourteen months Corporal Miller had faithfully 
performed the duties of a soldier in the service of his State and 
country. He was held in high esteem by his comrades, having 
proven himself a man of high ideals, gentlemanly habits, and of 
a quiet, unassuming nature which drew him close to the hearts 
of all who came into personal contact with him. His success as 
a soldier should be an encouragement and an inspiration to the 
comrades who remain to carry on the work in which he proved 
faithful until after a period of patient suffering he was called to his 
reward. 



By Sergt. R. L. Ousterhout 

Sergt. L. Owen Adamy, Machine Gun Company, 4th Infantry, 
of Johnson City, detailed to Provisional Company G, died in 
Field Hospital No. i, Newburgh, on Oct. 12th, 19 1 8, of pneu- 
monia following influenza. 

Sergeant Adamy was born May 4th, 1898, at Sayre, Pa., where 
he resided until ten years of age, when he moved with his family 
to Wilkes-Barre, Pa. 

Having undergone a serious operation, he was obliged to lose 
a year's schooling, but this was no hindrance to his active mind, 
as in one year he made up the year's schooling and took up the 
advanced subjects with his class. It was here that he spent his 
boyhood and youth, surrounded by a happy family and pleasant 
companions. Upon entering high school he at once took the leader- 
ship in all public speaking and school dramas and was very popu- 
lar with his schoolmates. It was at this time that he took up the 
study of music, at which he showed marked ability. 

He graduated from Dorranceton high school at the age of 
seventeen. In 1916 the family moved to Union, N. Y., where he 
took a course in business at the Union-Endicott High School. 
He afterward entered the employ of the Endicott Forging Com- 
pany. Having a desire to study law, he entered the office of 
Attorney Baxter, of Endicott, where he attended to the clerical 
work. 

He earnestly wished to be in the military service at the be- 
ginning of the war, but on account of his physical condition knew 
that he would be fit only for limited service, so he joined Machine 
Gun Company, 4th Infantry, guarding New York's water supply, 
of which his brother Howard was a member. He was soon pro- 
moted to corporal, as company clerk, and after only nine months' 



IN MEMORIAM 431 

service was promoted to sergeant, in which he did his work faith- 
fully. 

The members of Machine Gun Company, 4th Infantry, mourn 
the loss of a comrade and brother very greatly. He leaves to 
mourn his loss, besides his father and mother, five brothers: Basil, 
at home; Ralf, of South Bethlehem; Harry, of Wilkes-Barre; 
Howard, a sergeant of Machine Gun Co., 4th Infantry; and 
Clifford, of the battle-ship Illinois. His body was laid to rest 
with full military honors in Riverside Cemetery, Endicott, N. Y. 



Private Samuel Hallett, Troop G, ist Cavalry, of Clark 
Mills, N. Y., detailed to Provisional Supply Company, died in 
the Peekskill Hospital, Oct. 13, 19 18, of pneumonia following 
influenza. His nearest surviving relative is Hallet Hallett, a 
Syrian, of Clark Mills, N. Y. 



Private James Waldron, Machine Gun Company, 4th Infantry, 
of Burlington, Pa., detailed to Provisional Company G, died in 
Field Hospital No. i, Newburgh, Oct. 15th, 1918, of pneumonia 
following influenza. 

Private Waldron was born at Towanda, Pa., in 1898. He was 
a great lover of outdoor life and spent his earlier days on a farm 
with his parents, of whom he was very fond. 

He came to Endicott, N. Y., in 191 5, and obtained employment 
with the Endicott-Johnson Co. and remained in their employ 
until Aug. 8th, 1917, when he enlisted as a member of our 
company. He was one of the most ambitious boys in the com- 
pany, and when there was any extra work or anything out of the 
ordinary to do he was always one of the first to respond. 

While stationed at Garrison he made the acquaintance of Miss 
Gladys Huffman, who later became his wife. It was only a short 
time after we came to our present camp that he, with several 
others, became ill and was taken to the hospital at Newburgh, 
where he died. His death was a great shock to all the company, 
as he was considered one of the most rugged members, but we 
know that he is now resting peacefully, as his life was like that 
little poem by Bryant: 

"So live that when thy summons comes to join that in- 
numerable caravan that moves to the pale realms of shade, 
where each shall take his chamber in the silent halls of 
death. Thou go not like the quarry-slave at night, scourged 
to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed by an unfalter- 



432 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

ing trust, approach thy grave as one who wraps the drapery 
of his couch about him and Hes down to pleasant dreams." 



Corp. Antonio Pernice, Machine Gun Company, 71st Infantry, 
of 224 East 1 1 8th Street, New York, detailed to Provisional Com- 
pany D, died in Peekskill Hospital, Oct. 15th, 1918, of pneu- 
monia following Spanish influenza. 



Private Carl Baley, Company K, 4th Infantry, of Hornell, N. 
Y., detailed to Provisional Company G, died in Field Hospital 
No. I, Oct. i6th, 1918, of pneumonia following influenza. 

Private Baley was born in Cansaraga, N. Y., in 1898. In his 
early life his parents moved to Eldred, Pa., where he passed his 
first school years. After completing his education he went to 
Hornell, N. Y., where he made his home with his sister. There he 
took up the carpenter's trade, of which he made a good success. 
Private Baley enlisted in Company K, 4th Infantry, on June 
28th, 1918, after trying to enter Federal service and being re- 
jected. He had an excellent record in the home company as 
well as after entering active service. 

He was employed by the Elgar Manufacturing Co., of Hornell, 
N. Y., making cabins for ships. Private Baley left a host of 
friends in the service as well as at home. He is survived by his 
father, of Eldred, Pa., and one sister, of Hornell, N. Y. 



Private Chester Bennett, Company A, 4th Infantry, of Swains, 
N. Y., detailed to Provisional Company G, died in Field Hospital 
No. I, Newburgh, Oct. i6th, 191 8, of pneumonia following 
influenza. 

Private Chester Bennett was born at Swains, N. Y., in the 
month of July, 1897. I made his acquaintance when he came, 
at the age of thirteen, to live with his aunt in Angelica and to 
study in the public school there. 

He immediately became the center of an ever-widening circle 
of friends among the young people, and when he left school to 
become associated with his uncle in his dry-goods store, the people 
with whom he came in contact in business recognized his ability 
in buying and selling, and his patrons grew to appreciate his ready 
smile and his prevailing good-nature. After his uncle's death he 
assisted his aunt to carry on the business successfully and be- 
came an important member of the firm, of whom his loss is deeply 
felt. 

When the organization of the Home Defense Company was 
undertaken in our town, he became interested and enlisted as a 



IN MEMORIAM 433 

charter member; later, when the company was mustered into the 
New York Guard as Company A of the 4th Infantry, he became 
one of the most efficient and reliable men of our unit. To the 
call for volunteers for active service, which was issued in the 4th 
Regiment the last week in August, he responded, although it 
required sacrifices for himself and those associated with him. 
During his two months' service with Company G he never failed 
in his duty in any respect, and was at all times found ready to 
obey all orders uncomplainingly and to the very best of his ability. 
His friends and comrades will cherish his memory as that of one of 
the truest of friends and finest of soldiers. 



Private Malcolm A. Northrip, Company H, ist Infantry, of 
Milton, N. Y., detailed to Provisional Machine Gun Company, 
died at Field Hospital No. i, Newburgh, Oct. 31st, 1918, of 
pneumonia following influenza. 

Private Northrip was the youngest son of Charles S. and 
Josephine Ludlow Northrip, born Oct. 29th, 1898, at Milton- 
on-the-Hudson. He graduated from Marlborough High School 
in 1916, and, having won a scholarship, entered Syracuse University 
in the fall of 1916, after having taken a summer course at Oneonta 
Normal School. 

Early in 1917 he took an examination for entrance to West 
Point, but was unsuccessful. 

While in Syracuse University, Private Northrip was a member 
of the University Chorus of three hundred voices. Later, he 
continued his musical studies in the Damrosch Institute of Musical 
Arts, where he was leading baritone soloist. While at the Dam- 
rosch Institute he learned to sing in Spanish, French, Italian and 
German. 

As a member of Company H, Private Northrip volunteered for 
thirty days' service on the Aqueduct, and on Oct. 22nd was 
taken to Field Hospital No. i suflPering from influenza. 

Private Northrip was a member of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church, where he gave his talented voice many times. He is 
survived by his wife, who was Miss Carola de Leon, of Cuba and 
New York. 

Funeral services were held by his pastor, the Rev. Hart S. 
Fuller and the Rev. George Allen, friend of the family and former 
pastor, for whom he was named. Internment was made in the 
family plot in Cedar Hill Cemetery, with military honors. 



Private Harry Lee Stephens, Company K, 4th Infantry, of 
Canisteo, N. Y., R. F. P. No. i, detailed to Provisional Company 



4H H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

E, died in Field Hospital No. i, Newburgh, of penumonia follow- 
ing influenza, on Nov. 24th, 1918. Private Stephens had been 
with the First Provisional only about ten days. 



Private George Albert Tate, Company K, 4th Infantry, of 
Canisteo, N. Y., detailed to Provisional Company E, died in 
Field Hospital No. i, Newburgh, Nov. 26th, 191 8, of pneu- 
monia following influenza. 

Private Tate was an orphan, and Company K, 4th Infantry, 
took charge of his body and gave him a military funeral, in- 
ternment being made in a plot owned by that company in the 
cemetery at Hornell. 



Private George Nourse, Company D, 4th Infantry, of Trumans- 
burg, N. Y., detailed to Provisional Company E, died in Field 
Hospital No. I, Newburgh, Nov. 26th, 191 8, of pneumonia 
following influenza. 

Private Nourse was a son of Mr. and Mrs. A. W. Nourse, of 
Trumansburg, N. Y., R. F. D. 31. He was too young for Federal 
service and had been on Aqueduct duty only a short time when 
called upon to answer his Last Call of Duty. 



Private Halsey Conway, Company C, 4th Infantry, of 126 
Baker Street, Corning, detailed to Provisional Company E, died 
in Field Hospital No. i, Newburgh, Nov. 26th, 1918, of pneu- 
monia following influenza. 



Private Percy J. Howell, Company K, 4th Infantry, of North 
Lansing, N. Y., detailed to Provisional Company E, died in Field 
Hospital No. i, Newburgh, Nov. 27th, 1918, pf pneumonia 
following influenza. 

Private Howell was a member of the detachment of 4th In- 
fantry which came into the field Nov. 19th, and was the 
fourth member of Company K, 4th Infantry, to die while in the 
service with the First Provisional. He is survived by his parents, 
Mr. and Mrs. Louis J. Howell, of North Lansing, and two sisters. 



Private Frank Baker, Company C, 4th Infantry, of 148 East 
Market Street, Corning, N. Y., detailed to Provisional Company 
G, died in Field Hospital No. i, Newburgh, Nov. 29th, 1918, 
of pneumonia following influenza. 



IN MEMORIAM 435 

Private Fred Higgins, Company D, 4th Infantry, of Groton, 
N. Y., detailed to Provisional Supply Company, died in Field 
Hospital No. 2, Ossining, Nov. 29th, 191 8, of penumonia 
following influenza. 

Private Higgins was the first member of the First Provisional 
to die of influenza at Field Hospital No. 2. 



Private Raymond Gee, Company D, 4th Infantry, of Trumans- 
burg, N. Y., detailed to Provisional Supply Company, died at 
Field Hospital No. 2, Ossining, Nov. 30th, 1918, of pneumonia 
following influenza. 



Private Frank Poole, Company B, 4th Infantry, of Friendship, 
N. Y., detailed to Provisional Company E, died at Field Hospital 
No. I, Newburgh, Dec. ist, 191 8, of pneumonia following 
influenza. 



Private Leslie C. Fuller, Machine Gun Company, 4th Infantry, 
of Groton, N. Y., detailed to Provisional Supply Company, died 
at Field Hospital No. 2, Ossining, Dec. 2nd, 1918, of pneumonia 
following influenza. 

Private Fuller was born in Groton, January 27, 1900, and was 
the second son of Mr. and Mrs. Irving C. Fuller. Nearly his 
entire life was spent on the farm of his parents, three miles east 
of Groton. Private Fuller was president of the Senior Class of 
Groton High School at the time he volunteered for active service 
with the First Provisional Regiment, and was an active member 
of the First Congregational Church of Groton during the last two 
years of his life. He is survived by his mother and one brother, 
Sergt. H. V. Fuller. 



Private Leslie Hellenack, Company M, loth Infantry, of 227 
Dewey Avenue, Herkimer, N. Y., detailed to Provisional Com- 
pany F, died in Field Hospital No. i, Newburgh, Dec. 3rd, 
19 1 8, of pneumonia following influenza. 

The following is taken from the Evening Telegram of Herkimer: 

"It is a sad and stunning blow that has fallen upon Mr. 
and Mrs. Frank Hellenack, of Dewey Avenue, to-day in 
the notification that their son, Leslie, is dead. Even the 
fact of his illness was unknown to them, making it all 
the greater a shock when they were informed by telegraph 



436 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

this morning, that after a week's illness with influenza 
the young guardsman had succumbed last night at Field 
Hospital No. I, Newburgh. He would have been twenty- 
one years of age next April. It had been his patriotic ambi- 
tion to serve with the national forces of Uncle Sam, but his 
efforts to enlist in the regular army during the war were 
frustrated by failure to pass the eye test. He then joined the 
State Guard a year ago October 14th last and had been 
stationed in the vicinity of New York City to aid in the 
protection of public works. 

"Besides his afflicted parents, he is survived by one 
brother, Roy. Leslie was a native Herkimer boy and 
previous to his enlistment had been employed by the Wag- 
ner Furniture Company. He was a member of St. Francis 
de Sales Church, and in the two brief years of his career he 
had proved himself well in worth and manhood. Consistent 
in his faith, loyal to every duty, whether of civil or mili- 
tary life, and with the heart of a fine young American 
inspiring him to do what lay in his power, he was of 
those that credit their family and community. A host of 
friends share in the sorrow of his demise and their earnest 
sympathy is with those bereaved in his passing." 



Private John Lynch, Company B, 69th Infantry, of 2582 Eighth 
Avenue, New York, detailed to Provisional Company B, died in 
Peekskill Hospital, Dec, 3rd, 1918, of pneumonia following 
influenza. 



Private Frank De Costa, Company A, 69th Infantry, of 17 
Beekman Place, New York, detailed to Provisional Company B, 
died in Field Hospital No. i, Ossining, Dec. 3rd, 1918, of 
pneumonia following influenza. 

Private De Costa was born in Providence, R. I., September 29, 
1900. His first school-days were spent in the Sterling School, 
New York, but his father died during his childhood and his 
mother was compelled to place him in an orphanage. Later, the 
field secretary of the Charleston School at Ballston Lake, N. Y., 
became interested in Private De Costa and secured a membership 
in that school for him. He remained in this school until a short 
time before he enlisted in the New York Guard. Private De 
Costa served for nearly six months on the line with the First 
Provisional Regiment. 



IN MEMORIAM 437 

He is survived by his mother, and one sister, Miss Carrie De 
Costa, of West Long Branch, New Jersey. 



Sergt. Charles Garland, Machine Gun Company, 4th Infantry, 
of 25 Lyon Street, Binghamton, N. Y., detailed to Provisional 
Company G, died in Field Hospital No. i, Newburgh, Dec. 
4th, 191 8, of pneumonia following influenza. 



Sergt. Frank Avery, Machine Gun Company, 4th Infantry, 
of Vestal Center, N. Y., detailed to Provisional Company G, died 
in Field Hospital No. i, Newburgh, Dec. 6th, 1918, of pneu- 
monia following influenza. 



Private Earl Weir, Company A, 4th Infantry, of Birdsall, N. 
Y., detailed to Provisional Company E, died at Field Hospital 
No. I, Newburgh, Dec. 6th, 191 8, of pneumonia following 
influenza. 



Private Howell Roberts, Company F, 4th Infantry, of Warren 
Center, Pa., detailed to Provisional Company E, died in Ossining 
Hospital, Ossining, Dec. 28th, 1918, of pneumonia following 
influenza. 

Private Roberts was born at Warren Center, Pa., on Jan. 30th, 
1902. He spent his boyhood here and was a member of the Senior 
Class of Warren Center High School at the time he enlisted in 
the New York Guard. While in school. Private Roberts developed 
an unusual ability in elocution, which always delighted his friends 
and audience. 

He enlisted in the New York Guard at Owego, N. Y., on Nov. 
1 2th, 191 8, but as he was a resident of Pennsylvania, the 
consent of his parents was necessary. This they at first refused to 
give, but, seeing his whole heart set on going, they at last consented 
and helped him to go. 

Funeral services were held at Neath Church, which he had 
always attended, his pastor. Rev. James Williams, officiating. 

With his casket draped by the flag he loved, carried to his grave 
by loving schoolmates, and followed by sorrowing relatives and 
friends, he was buried at Neath, Pa., among his Welsh ancestors, 
having given his young life for his country and made the "supreme 
sacrifice" as truly as any who fell "over there." 



438 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

Private Clayton Neville, Company G, ist Infantry, of Pine 
Plains, N. Y., detailed to Provisional Machine Gun Company, 
died in Field Hospital No. 2, Ossining, Jan. nth, 1919, of pneu- 
monia following influenza. 



Private Thomas A. Stokes, Company A, 69th Infantry, of 228 
West i6th Street, New York, detailed to Provisional Company 
B, died in Peekskill Hospital, Peekskill, Jan. 2nd, 1918, as a 
result of being shot. 

Private Stokes had been detailed to special duty with the prison 
detachment at Peekskill State Camp, and it was the accidental 
discharge of a rifle in the hands of another prison guard which 
caused his death. His was the first death in the First Provisional 
Regiment. 



Private Aloysius Kelly, Company B, 69th Infantry, of 351 
West 52nd Street, New York, detailed to Provisional Company 
M, died as a result of being struck by a New York Central train 
at Pleasantville, N. Y., March 9, 1918. 



Private James Burke, Company G, 14th Infantry, of 1 18 William 
Street, Jamaica, Long Island, detailed to Provisional Company 
K, died March 11, 1918, of pneumonia. 



Sergt. Bienvenido Fajardo, of the 8th Coast Artillery Corps, 
whose home was at 60 St. Nicholas Avenue, New York City, 
detailed to Provisional Company C, died in St. Luke's Hospital, 
Newburgh, Sept. 9th, 19 18, as the result of a self-inflicted 
wound. 



Private Arthur Rourke, Company H, 14th Infantry, of 666 
Sixth Avenue, Brooklyn, detailed to Provisional Company M, 
died Oct. 5th, 19 1 8, as the result of being shot. 



Private Harry Reynolds, Company G, ist Infantry, of Pine 
Plains, N. Y., detailed to Provisional Company H, died in Field 
Hospital No. 2, Ossining, Oct. 26th, 1918, of typhoid fever. 
Private Reynolds was taken sick while on the line of Provisional 
Company H and was removed to Field Hospital No. i, Newburgh. 



IN MEMORIAM 439 

No. I was then overflowing with influenza patients and Private 
Reynolds was taken to Field Hospital No. 2, and was the first 
man to die in No. 2. 



Sergt. Leroy W. Livett, 7th Company, 13th Coast Artillery 
Corps, of Ozone Park, Long Island, detailed to Provisional Com- 
pany I, died Nov. 22nd, 1918, as the result of being shot. 



Cook Martin Ryan, Company E, 14th Infantry, of 1438 Fulton 
Street, Brooklyn, detailed to Provisional Company K, died May 
16, 1918, as a result of Bright's disease. 



APPENDIX I 

(i) Orders and Communications Showing Original and Subsequent Distribu- 
tion of National Guard Troops on Aqueduct Prior to Taking Over by First Pro- 
visional Regiment. 

(2) Table Showing the Sizes and Eras of the Great Aqueducts of Antiquity. 




When the First Provisional Regiment Buried Its Dead in Peace- 
ful Sleepy Hollow Cemetery 



COPY OF WESTERN UNlON TELEGRAM 

New York, February 3, 1917. 
Commanding Officer, ist New York Infantry, 
Binghamton, New York, 
Your regiment, less Companies C, D and K, is assigned to secure that part of 
New York City water supply between Breakneck on east bank of Hudson, two 
miles north of Cold Spring, to Influent Chamber, Kensico, six miles west of Tarry- 
town. Your headquarters will be at Peekskill. One battalion of five companies, 
with headquarters in vicinity of Cortlandtville, two miles north of Peekskill 
village, will secure the sector Breakneck aforesaid to South Chamber, Turkey 
Mountain Siphon, length eighteen miles. Points requiring special attention: 
Drainage Chamber Hudson River Siphon at Storm King Station, Gauging Cham- 
ber, Breakneck; South Chamber, Foundry Brook Siphon; North Chamber, Indian 
Brook Siphon; South Chamber, Indian Brook Siphon; North Chamber, Sprout 
Brook Siphon; North Chamber, Peekskill Siphon; South Chamber, Peekskill 
Siphon; North Chamber, Hunter's Brook Siphon; South Chamber, Hunter's 
Brook Siphon; North Chamber, Turkey Mountain Siphon; South Chamber, 
Turkey Mountain Siphon. One Battalion headquarters near Pleasantville will 
secure the sector, Turkey Mountain Siphon exclusive, to Influent Chamber, 
Kensico inclusive. Points requiring special attention: Downtake Chamber, 
Croton Lake; Gauging Chamber, Croton Lake; North Chamber, Harlem Railway 
Siphon; South Chamber, Harlem Railway Siphon; Influent Chamber, Kensico. 
Service will require many small detached posts, making it necessary to billet details 
at convenient houses, which can probably be done at expense authorized. Hire 
of Ford car for regimental commander authorized at expense not to exceed ten 
dollars per day. You may draw on Camp Quartermaster, Peekskill, for not ex- 
ceeding twelve mules, harness and three wagons. Confer with Sergeant Donovan, 
Aqueduct Police, at Valhalla, regarding details affecting sector. Make own dis- 
position in accordance with above and move your companies by rail accordingly. 
Report by 'phone and in writing number and compositions of detached posts. 
Rigid discipline will be enforced at all times. It is thought that Aqueduct Police 
will be able to supply officers' mounts. Enlisted men not properly clothed for this 
service will remain at home station until suitably provided. References to Geo- 
logical Survey Map West Point and Tarrytown quadrangles. Send officer or in- 
telligent non-commissioned officer here in morning to copy map of Aqueduct 
route. Companies should move with at least two days' haversack rations, one 
of which should be kept in reserve. 

Reagan, Division Adjutant. 



TELEGRAM 

New York, February 3, 1917. 
Commanding Officer, ioth Infantry, 
Albany, N. Y. 
Your regiment is assigned to secure that part of the New York City water sup- 
ply, as follows, reference to Geological Survey Map, one battalion with headquarters 
29 



444 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

near intersection of Aqueduct and New York, Ontario and Western Railroad 
west of High Falls, securing the sector from the Head Works at Olive Bridge, in- 
clusive, to the Walkill Siphon, inclusive, length twenty-four miles. Points re- 
quiring special attention: Head Works at Olive Bridge and North Chamber, 
Esopus Siphon; South Chamber, Esopus Siphon; North Chamber, Tongore 
Siphon; South Chamber, Tongore Siphon; Gauging Chamber, Peak Tunnel; and 
Drainage Chamber, Rondout. One battalion with headquarters near Saint Elmo, 
four miles northeast of Walden, to secure the sector, Walkill Siphon, exclusive, to 
Storm King, inclusive, length twenty-two miles. Points requiring special atten- 
tion: Gauging Chamber, Walkill; Blow-off Chamber, Walkill; North Chamber, 
Washington Square Siphon; South Chamber, Washington Square Siphon; and 
Storm King. One battalion, less Company I, with headquarters White Plains 
Armory, to secure the sector, Upper Effluent Chamber, Kensico, to the Harlem 
River at High Bridge. Points requiring special attention: Upper Effluent Cham- 
ber, Kensico; Lower Effluent Chamber, Kensico; Screen Chamber, Kensico; 
North Chamber, Kensico Siphon; South Chamber, Kensico Siphon; North Cham- 
ber, Elmsford Siphon; South Chamber, Elmsford Siphon; North Chamber, Fort 
Hill Siphon; South Chamber, Fort Hill Siphon; North Chamber, Bryn Mawr 
Siphon; Uptake Chamber, Hill View Siphon; Downtake Chamber, Hill View 
Siphon; Dunwoodie By-pass near Midland and Yonkers Avenues; Gate House, 
Jerome Park Reservoir; Pumping Station, Jerome Avenue and Mosholu Parkway. 
Company I and Machine Gun Company, headquarters. Flushing Armory or 
Rockville Centre, to secure the sector, Ridgewood Reservoir to Influent Pumping 
Station, Massapequa, inclusive. Pumping Station in this sector to have special 
attention. Service will require numerous small detached posts, making it necessary 
to billet details at convenient houses, which can probably be done at subsistence 
expense authorized. Hire of Ford car for regimental commander authorized at 
expense not to exceed ten dollars per day. Confer with Sergeant Fitzgerald, 
at Brown Station at Ashokan Reservoir, and Sergeant Harrel, at Yonkers Aqueduct 
Police, regarding details affecting your sector. Make your own dispositions of your 
companies in accordance with above and move them promptly by rail accordingly. 
Report by 'phone and in writing, number, location and composition of detached 
posts. Rigid discipline will be enforced at all times. Enlisted men not properly 
clothed for this service will remain at home station until suitably provided. Send 
officer or intelligent non-commissioned officer here to copy map of Aqueduct route. 
Companies should move with two days' haversack rations, one of which to be 
kept in reserve. Message, until Monday morning, to First Field Artillery, Armory. 
Acknowledge. Instructions have been wired direct to Glover and Dooley. 

Reaga-Nj. Division Adjutant. 



COPY OF WESTERN UNION TELEGRAM 

New York City, February 3, 19 17. 
Major Ralph M. Glover, ioth Infantry, 
White Plains, N. Y. 
You will be assigned, with three companies, to secure that part of the New York 
City water supply Catskill Aqueduct, in the sector Upper Effluent Chamber, 
Kensico, to the Harlem River and High Bridge. Points requiring special atten- 
tion: Upper Effluent Chamber, Kensico; Lower Effluent Chamber, Kensico; 
Screen Chamber, Kensico; North Chamber, Kensico Siphon; South Chamber, 
Kensico Siphon, North Chamber, Elmsford Siphon; South Chamber, Elmsford 



APPENDIX I 445 

Siphon; North Chamber, Fort Hill Siphon; South Chamber, Fort Hill Siphon; 
North Chamber, Bryn Mawr Siphon; Uptake Chamber, Hillview Siphon; Down- 
take Chamber, Hillview Siphon; Dunwoodie By-pass, near Midland and Yonkers 
Avenues; Gate House, Jerome Park Reservoir; Pumping Station, Jerome Avenue 
and Mosholu Parkway. Service will require numerous small detached posts, 
making it necessary to billet details at convenient houses, which can probably be 
done at subsistence expense authorized regimental commander. Confer with 
Sergeant Harrel, Aqueduct Police at Yonkers, regarding details affecting your 
sector. Report by wire and in writing, number, location and composition of de- 
tached posts. Enlisted men not properly clothed for this service will remain at 
home station until suitably provided. Send officer or intelligent non-com. here to 
copy map. Companies should move with two days' haversack rations, one of 
which to be kept in reserve. Advise regimental headquarters of dispositions made. 
Acknowledge. 

Reagan, Adjutant. 



COPY OF WESTERN UNION TELEGRAM 

New York, February 3, 1917. 
Captain T. J. Dooley, ioth Infantry, 
Flushing, N. Y. 
Your company, with Machine Gun Company, is assigned to secure that part 
of New York City water supply in sector Ridgewood Reservoir to Infiltration 
Pumping Station, Massapequa, inclusive. All pumping stations in this sector 
to have special attention. Service will require numerous small detached posts, 
making it necessary to billet details at convenient houses, which can probably 
be done at subsistence authorized regimental commander. Make your own dis- 
positions in accordance with above and move promptly. Report by wire and in 
writing, location and composition of detached posts. Enlisted men not properly 
clothed for this service will remain at home station until suitably provided. Com- 
panies should move with two days' haversack rations, one of which to be kept in 
reserve. Acknowledge. 

Reagan, Division Adjutant. 



COPY OF WESTERN UNION TELEGRAM 

February 15th, 1917. 
Commanding Officer, ist New York Infantry, 
PeekskiU, N. Y. 
Detach at once two companies of your command to report to Commanding 
Officer, loth Infantry, for duty on sector Olive Bridge-Storm King. Report im- 
mediately by wire to Commanding Officer, loth Infantry, New Paltz. Companies 
to be detached in accordance herewith. Commanding Officer loth Infantry will 
advise destination, etc. Make necessary dispositions to cover sectors vacated by 
detached companies and report to these headquarters. Report time of departure 
and designations of companies. Acknowledge. 

Reagan, Major, Adjutant. 



446 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

COPY OF WESTERN UNION TELEGRAM 

February 15th, 1917. 
Commanding Officer, ioth New York Infantry, 
New Paltz, N. Y. 
You will detach, without delay, one company of your regiment, to proceed to 
Poughkeepsie, and two companies to proceed to Albany, for the purpose of pro- 
viding adequate protection to Hudson River bridges at those points. The officers 
in command of these detachments will confer with the mayors of the cities named 
as to the measures to be taken. The movements and dispositions will be made 
with the greatest possible secrecy. Suggest that two companies of the ist Bat- 
talion be sent to Albany and Company K to Poughkeepsie, but choice of companies 
left to your judgment. Make temporary disposition of remaining troops to cover 
gaps until arrival of other companies, and report final disposition made of such 
companies. The companies detached in accordance with the foregoing will close 
tour of service in aid of civil authorities of the City of New York, and separate 
pay-rolls and items of subsequent expense will be kept for the duty herein ordered. 
Morning reports hereafter will show special duty of detached companies. Orders 
now in force with regard to subsistence, etc., will apply so far as applicable. Com- 
manding Officer, ist Infantry, and Commanding Officer, 3rd Battalion, your 
regiment will report to you for instructions as to destination, etc., of companies to 
replace those withdrawn. These companies will be adequately clothed and equipped 
with fleece-lined great-coats for twenty per cent, of strength. Advise time of de- 
parture and the strength of companies detached in accordance with the foregoing, 
and the Commanding Officers of these detachments will report by telegram to 
you and to these headquarters time of arrival. Acknowledge. 

Reagan, Major, Adjutant. 



April 25th, 1917. 
From: The Assistant to the Adjutant-General. 
To: Commanding General, Eastern Department. 

Subject: Detachments of State Troops on Duty. 

I. By the direction of the Adjutant-General I have to inform you that detach- 
ments of the 1st and loth Regiments, N. Y. Infantry, N. G., are now on duty as 
follows: 

First Infantry: 

Det. Co. A At Utica and Trenton Falls Electric Power Plant. 

Dets. Cos. A and B At Salmon River Power Plant, Altman, Oswego Co., N. Y. 

Det. Co. B At State Fair Grounds, Syracuse, N. Y., guarding grounds 

and Solway Power Plant and sub-stations. 
Co. C At Watertown, N. Y., guarding railway bridges and 

munitions factories. 
Co. E On duty with loth Infantry, western sector New York 

water supply system. 
Det. Co. L Western approaches to U. S. Naval Station at lona 

Island. 
Det. Co. M At Oswego, N. Y., guarding power dam. 



APPENDIX I 447 

Tenth Infantry: 

Hdqrts. Co. 1 

Supply Co. \ On western sector, New York water supply system. 

Cos. A, C, D, E and H J 

Det. Co. B Capitol and Education Building, Albany, N. Y. 

Co. I and M. G. Co.. . .Rockville Center, L. I., water supply. 

2. These detachments are all guarding important public utilities; and this 
information is given for reference in case these organizations should be called into 
Federal service. 

C. H. Hitchcock, Colonel, 
Assistant to the Adjutant-General. 



HEADQUARTERS 

TWENTY-THIRD REGIMENT, N. Y. INF., N. G. 

BROOKLYN, N. Y. 

May s, 1917. 
Special Orders 
No. 48 

I. The Commanding Officer, ist Battalion, 23rd New York Infantry, N. G., 
is directed to reassign his troops, covering Pleasantville sector. New York City 
water supply, as follows: 

Battalion Headquarters at Pleasantville, N. Y. 
Company B, with headquarters at Section No. 2, office near Croton Lake, 
Downtake Chamber, covering: 

Cut and Cover 
Hunter's Brook Tunnel to Turkey Mountain Siphon (i.i miles) 
Four Posts: Non-coms. Pvts. 

One Connection Chamber \ ^ 

Three Free-draining Culverts / ^ 

Turkey Mountain Siphon 
Three Posts: 

North Siphon Chamber ] 

Blow-off Chamber [ 2 10 

Soutli Siphon Chamber J 

Turkey Mountain Tunnel to Croton Lake 
Two Posts: 

Blow-off to Croton Lake \ 

Downtake Chamber / ^ 

Troop B, ist Squadron, ist New York Cavalry, N. G., with headquarters one 
and one-half miles west of Kitchawan Station, near Aqueduct, covering: 

Cut and Cover 
Uptake Shaft Croton Lake Siphon to Croton Tunnel 
Three Posts: Non-coms. Pvts. 

Uptake Shaft ] 

Boat-hole [ 

One Free-draining Culvert f 

' Gauging Chamber and Culvert J 



2 II 



448 H-A-L-TT !— WHA-ZAA ? 

Croton Tunnel to Chadeayne Tunnel 
One Post: Non-coms. Pvts. 

One Free-draining Culvert i 4 

Company C, with headquarters in barn at Millwood Road and Aqueduct cover- 
ing: 

Cut and Cover 
Chadeayne Tunnel to Putnam Siphon 
Eight Posts: Non-coms. Pvts. 

Eight Free-draining Culverts 4 32 

Company D, with headquarters at Mud Hill Road in engineer's house on Aque- 
duct property, covering: 

Putnam Siphon 
Three Posts: Non-coms. Pvts. 

Northerly Boat-hole ] 

One Manhole \ 2 10 

Southerly Boat-hole J 

Cut and Cover 
Between Putnam Siphon and Millwood Tunnel 
Two Posts: Non-coms. Pvts. 

Two Free-draining Culverts (.8 of a mile) 2 7 

Cut and Cover 
Between Millwood Tunnel and Scarles Tunnel 
One Post: Non-coms. Pvts. 

One Free-draining Culvert i 6 

Company A, with headquarters in engineer's office at Pleasantville, N. Y., near 
Aqueduct, covering: 

Harlem Railroad Siphon 
Three Posts: Non-coms. Pvts. 

North Siphon-house ] 

Two Culverts \ ~. 2 9 

South Siphon-house J 

Cut and Cover 
Between Harlem R. R. Tunnel and Pleasantville Tunnel 
One Post: Non-coms. Pvts. 

One Siphon (and Manhole to be covered by patrolling) i 4 

Pleasantville Tunnel to Reynolds Hill Tunnel (one and one-half miles long, con- 
sisting of three free-draining culverts, one measuring chamber and coagu- 
lating plant): 
Three Posts: Non-coms. Pvts. 

One Free-draining Culvert and Coagulating Plant. i 4 

Two Southerly Culverts (One including measuring 

chamber) 2 8 



APPENDIX I 449 

Cut and Cover 

Kensico Lake to Reynolds Hill Tunnel 

One Post: Non-coms. Pvts. 

Kensico Influent Chamber 1 

One Manhole south of Reynolds Hill Tunnel to be }■ i 5 

covered by patrolling J 

The following fixed posts on New Croton Aqueduct will be covered as follows: 

By Company C, 23rd N. Y. Inf., N. G.— Shaft No. 2. i 6 

By Troop B, ist Squadron, ist New York Cav., N. G. 

Four Posts: Non-coms. Pvts. 

Shaft No. I I 5 

Each End of Dam 2 9 

New Croton Lake Screen-house i 3 

Each of the above-named siphon-houses, culverts and blow-oflPs will be protected 
by individual fixed posts, the strengths of posts given being the minimum pro- 
tection agreed upon by the Board of Water Supply, New York City, as being 
necessary. In addition to the posts mentioned, there is a considerable number of 
manholes and other entrances into the Aqueduct in addition to the siphon culverts. 
These are not so important, but will be covered by patrolling. 

In all cases the detachments will be camped at the posts named and you are 
directed to conform to the figures given as nearly as possible. When the com- 
panies are strengthened by accession of recruits, strict conformity will be required. 

By order of Colonel Norton: 
Captain, Acting Adjutant. 

2. The Commanding Officer, 2nd Battalion, 23rd New York Infantry, N. G., 
will reassign his troops as follows: 

Battalion Headquarters at Peekskill Division Office, 
Cortlandtville, N. Y. 

Machine Gun Company, with headquarters at house, foot of Breakneck Valley, 
Hudson River Division, covering: 

Hudson River to Breakneck Tunnel 
Two Posts: Non-coms. Pvts. 

East Shaft at Hudson River \ 
Uptake Shaft on the Hill / ^ ^° 



Company F, with headquarters on the Aqueduct, near North Chamber Foundry 
Brook Siphon, covering: 

Cut and Cover 
Breakneck Tunnel to Bullhill Tunnel (2,500 feet) 
Two Posts: Non-coms. Pvts. 

Two Free-draining Culverts 2 8 

Cut and Cover 
Between Bullhill Tunnel and Foundry Brook Siphon (600 feet). Covered by 
patrolHng. 



4SO H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

Foundry Brook Siphon 
Five Posts: Non-coms. Pvts. 

North Siphon Chamber ] 

Free-draining Culvert | 

Drainage-pipe Culvert \- 5 20 

Brook Crossing | 

South Siphon Chamber J 

Cut and Cover 
Foundry Brook Siphon to Mekeel Tunnel (i mile) 
Three Posts: Non-coms. Pvts. 

Three Free-draining Culverts 3 12 

Company E, with headquarters at Office, north end of Garrison Tunnel, covering: 

Cut and Cover 

Mekeel Tunnel to Indian Brook Siphon (4,000 feet) 

Two Posts: Non-coms. Pvts. 

Two Free-draining Culverts 2 8 

Indian Brook Siphon (600 feet) 
Three Posts: Non-coms. Pvts. 

North Siphon Chamber ] 

Brook Crossing (vulnerable) }■ 2 10 

South Siphon Chamber J 

Cut and Cover 
Indian Brook Siphon to Garrison Tunnel {2H miles) 
Three Posts: Non-coms. Pvts. 

Three Free-draining Culverts 3 12 

Company H, with headquarters at Peekskill Division Office, Cortlandtville, 
N. Y., covering: 

Cut and Cover 

Garrison Tunnel to Sprout Brook Siphon (3,300 feet) 

One manhole to be covered by patrolling. 

Sprout Brook Siphon (2,200 feet) 
Three Posts: Non-coms. Pvts. 

North Siphon Chamber ] 

Blow-ofF Chamber } 2 10 

South Siphon Chamber J - -. 

Cut and Cover 
Cathill Siphon to Peekskill Siphon (^ mile) 
Four Posts: Non-coms. Pvts. 

Four Free-draining Culverts 4 16 

Peekskill Siphon I 

(About iM miles) 
Four Posts: Non-coms. Pvts, 

North Siphon Chamber ] i 

Blow-ofF Chamber at Peekskill Creek | f 

Air-valve and Blow-off Chamber (near Peekskill [ 4. 16 

Division House) | 

South Siphon Chamber J i 

\ 



APPENDIX I 451 

Troop D, ist Squadron, ist New York Cavalry, N. G., with headquarters near 
cross-roads at Jacob's Hill, covering: 

Cut and Cover 
Peekskiil Siphon to Hunter's Brook Siphon (5 miles — 16 Free-draining Culverts) 
Six Posts: Non-coms. Pvts. 

Six Northerly Culverts 4 24 

(Remaining ten culverts covered by Co. G.) 

Company G, with headquarters at Section No. i, office on Peekskiil Cut and 
Cover, covering: 

Cut and Cover 
Peekskiil Siphon to Hunter's Brook Siphon (5 miles — 16 Free-draining Culverts) 

Ten Posts: Non-coms. Pvts. 

Ten Southerly Culverts 5 40 

(Six northerly culverts covered by Troop D, ist 
Squadron, ist New York Cavalry, N. G.) 

Hunter's Brook Siphon 
Three Posts: Non-coms. Pvts. 

North Siphon Chamber ] 

One Blow-off Chamber and Manhole [ 2 10 

South Siphon Chamber J 

In addition to the fixed posts assigned to Troop D, ist Squadron, ist New York 
Cavalry, N. G., the Cut and Cover, Peekskiil Siphon to Hunter's Brook Siphon 
(5 miles) will be covered by mounted patrols at one-half hour intervals during 
daylight hours. 

Each of the above-named siphon-houses, culverts and blow-offs will be pro- 
tected by individual fixed posts, the strengths of posts given being the minimum 
protection agreed upon by the Board of Water Supply, New York City, as being 
necessary. In addition to the posts mentioned, there is a considerable number of 
manholes and other entrances into the Aqueduct in addition to the siphon culverts. 
These are not so important, but will be covered by patrolling. 

In all cases the detachments will be camped at the posts named and you are 
directed to conform to the figures given as nearly as possible. When the companies 
are strengthened by accession of recruits, strict conformity will be required. 

By Order of Colonel Norton: 

Captain, Adjutant. 

5. The Commanding Officer, 3rd Battalion, 23rd New York Infantry, N. G., 
is directed to reassign his troops covering Kensico Sector, New York City water 
supply, as follows: 

Battalion Headquarters at Tarrytown Road and Elmsford Siphon, 

Elmsford, N. Y. 

Company K, with headquarters at Kensico Dam, covering: 

Kensico Dam 

Seven Posts: Officers Non-coms. Pvts. 

Weir (Spillway) 3 

Waste Conduit (Upper End) 3 

Waste Conduit (Lower End) 3 



452 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

Seven Posts: — Continued Officers Non-coms. Pvts. 

Lower Gate Chamber 3 

East End of Dam 6 

West End of Dam 6 

Middle of Dam 3 

Reserve 9 

Total I 4 36 

Four Posts: 

Kensico Upper Effluent 
Kensico Lower Effluent 
Screen Chamber 
Measuring Chamber 
Manhole 
Boat-hole 

Three Posts: Non-coms. Pvts. 

North Kensico Siphon Chamber \ 

Manhole \ 2 10 

South Kensico Siphon Chamber J 

Company L, with headquarters at Elmsford Siphon, covering: 

Cut and Cover 
East View Tunnel to Elmsford Siphon 
Seven Posts: Non-coms. Pvts. 

Seven Free-draining Culverts 3 27 

Four Posts: Non-coms. Pvts. 

North Elmsford Siphon Chamber \ 

Manhole ( 28 

Culvert f 

• South Elmsford Siphon Chamber J 

Cut and Cover 
Between North Elmsford Tunnel and South Elmsford Tunnel 
One Post: Non-coms. Pvts. 

One Culvert i 6 

Troop C, 1st New York Cavalry, with headquarters near Aqueduct on Hart's 
Corner, Ardsley Road, covering: 

Ardsley Cut and Cover 
Elmsford Tunnel and Piatt Avenue Siphon (3 miles long) 
Ten Posts: Non-coms. Pvts. 

Ten Free-draining Culverts 4 3^ 

Company I, with headquarters at Ashford Hill, Ardsley, N. Y., covering: 

Platt Avenue Siphon 
Two Posts, including: Non-coms. Pvts. 

Culvert ) 

Boat-hole \ 2 6 

Manhole J 



APPENDIX I 453 

Ardsley Cut and Cover 
Between Piatt Avenue Siphon and Fort Hill Siphon (i mile long) 
One Post: Non-coms. Pvts. 

One Free-draining Culvert i 3 

Fort Hill Siphon 
Three Posts: Non-coms. Pvts. 

Two Siphon-houses \ 
One Free-draining Culvert / 

Grassy Sprain Cut and Cover 

From Fort Hill to Bryn Mawr (2 miles long) 

(Consisting of Seven Free-draining Culverts) 

Two Posts: Non-coms. Pvts. 

Two Northerly Culverts i 7 

(Remaining 5 covered by Co. M) 

Company M, with headquarters at Bryn Mawr, on Aqueduct property near 
Yonkers, Tuckahoe Road, covering: 

Grassy Sprain Cut and Cover 

From Fort Hill to Bryn Mawr (2 miles long) 

(Consisting of Seven Free-draining Culverts) 

Five Posts: Non-coms. Pvts. 

Five Southerly Culverts 2 20 

(Two Culverts covered by Co. I) 

North Bryn Mawr Siphon 
(i mile) 
Five Posts: Non-coms. Pvts. 

North Bryn Mawr Siphon-house \ 

South Bryn Mawr Siphon-house [ 

Two Culverts f ^ ' 

Blow-off J 

Hillview Reservoir 
Uptake and Downtake 

Non-coms. Pvts. 

Two Posts and roadway patrolling 2 12 

The following fixed posts on Croton Aqueduct will be covered, as follows: 

By Troop C, ist New York Cavalry 
One Post: Non-coms. Pvts. 

Pocantico Hills Blow-off (Aqueduct No. 9) i 3 

By Company I, 23 rd New York Infantry, N. G. 
One Post: Non-coms. Pvts. 

Ardsley Shaft-house and Blow-off on Cut and Cover 

at Sawmill River Road (Aqueduct No. 14) i 6 

By Company M, 23 rd New York Infantry, N. G. 
One Post: 

Dunwoodie Chlorinating Plant (Aqueduct No. 18) 



454 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

It is contemplated that each of the above-mentioned siphon-houses, culverts 
and blow-offs will be protected by individual fixed posts, the figures given em- 
bracing the totals in different sections. 

The strengths of the posts as given in this order are those agreed upon by the 
Board of Water Supply as being the minimum protection necessary, and you are 
directed to conform thereto as nearly as possible. When companies are strength- 
ened by accession of recruits, strict conformity will be required. 

By Order of Colonel Norton: 
Captain, Acting Adjutant. 

Special Orders, No. 49, 23RD Infantry, N. Y. N. G. May 6th, 1917. 

I. The Commanding Officer, 2nd Battalion, 47th New York Infantry, N. G., 
is directed to reassign his troops, as follows: 

Battalion Headquarters at St. Elmo, New York 
Company H, with headquarters at Section 5, office Walkill Division, covering: 

Section of Cut and Cover 

Washington Square Siphon — Walkill Pressure Tunnel 
Five Posts: Non-coms. Pvis. 

Shaft No. 6 and Boat-hole at South End Walkill Pres- 
sure Tunnel i 5 

Gauging Chamber at Ireland's Corner — Modena 

Road-crossing I 4 

Walkill Blow-off (i^ miles long) 

At Aqueduct Entrance I 5 

At River Entrance i S 

(Manholes to be covered by patrolling) 

(No importance attached to culverts) 

Free-draining Culvert No. 72 i 4 

Company G, with headquarters at St. Elmo Brook Culvert No. 81, covering: 

Section of Cut and Cover 

Washington Square Siphon-Walkill Pressure Tunnel 

Four Posts: Non-coms. Pvts. 

No. 75 at Woolsey's Brook i 4 

No. 81 at St. Elmo Brook -. i 5 

No. 87 at Beattie's Brook i 5 

No. 90 at Stony Brook 2 6 

Company F, with headquarters at Gillick's Brook Culvert No. 102, covering: 

Section of Cut and Cover 

Washington Square Siphon-Walkill Pressure Tunnel 

Five Posts. Four Free-draining Culverts: Non-com^. Pvts- 

No. loi I 6 

No. 102 at Gillick's Brook 2 6 

No. 104 I 5 

No. 108 at Miller's Brook 1 5 

Company E, with headquarters near South Chamber, Washington Square 
Siphon, covering: 



APPENDIX I 455 

Washington Square Siphon 
Two Posts: Non-coms. Pvts. 

Blow-ofF No. 107 I 6 

South Siphon Chamber I 5 

Cut and Cover 
Moodna Tunnel to Washington Square Siphon 
Two Posts: Non-coms. Pvts. 

Downtake (Shaft No. i) and Boat-hole ] 

Free-draining Culvert No. 109 and Manhole | 

(Explanatory: 100 feet from Post No. i to }• 2 10 

Post No. 2; 6,400 feet from Post No. 2 to j 
Washington Square Siphon) J 

Detachment of Company E, 47th New York Infantry, N. G., now at access 
shaft, west bank of Hudson River, will be relieved by detachment Machine Gun 
Company, 23rd Infantry, N. Y. N. G. 

Troop A, ist Squadron, ist New York Cavalry, N. G., with headquarters at 
St. Elmo, N. Y., camped on Aqueduct, will establish a post of two non-commissioned 
officers and fourteen privates on Aqueduct just south of Washington Square-Little 
Britain Road. 

The Cavalry will patrol the Aqueduct from Shaft No. i, Moodna Tunnel, to 
South Chamber, Washington Square Siphon, and from North Chamber, Wash- 
ington Square Siphon, to Shaft No. 6, Walkill Pressure Tunnel, at one-half hour 
intervals from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. 

Each of the above-mentioned siphon-houses, culverts and blow-offs will be pro- 
tected by individual fixed posts, the strength of posts given being the minimum 
protection agreed upon by the Board of Water Supply, City of New York, as 
being necessary. In addition to the posts mentioned, there is a considerable 
number of manholes and other entrances into the Aqueduct in addition to the 
siphon culverts. These are not so important, but will be covered by patrolling, 
as previously indicated, during the daylight hours. At night small infantry patrols 
VTill cover them. 

In all cases the detachments will camp at the posts named and you are directed 
to conform to the figures given as nearly as possible. When the companies are 
strengthened by accession of recruits, strict conformity will be required. 

By Order of Colonel Norton: 

Captain, Adjutant. 



National Guard Organizations Not in Federal Service, But on Duty 
Guarding Property 

July 10, 1917. 

Organization Station 

Hdqrts. loth Infantry New Paltz 

Hdqrts. Co New Paltz 

Supply Co New Paltz 

Machine Gun Co Rockville Center, L. L 

Co. A Brown's Station 

Co. C High Falls 

Co. D Atwood 

Co. I , Rockville Center, L. I. 



4s6 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

First Infantry 

Co. E Not stated 

Note. — Other companies of the ist and loth Regiments on duty guarding the 
New York City Aqueduct were relieved from that duty and returned to their 
home stations when troops in U. S. service were placed on duty by the Commanding 
General, Eastern Department, in April and May, 191 7. 



COPY OF LETTER 

Sept. 21, 1917. 
From: The Adjutant-General. 

To: Commanding Officer, ist Provisional Regiment. 

Subject: Troops Formerly Guarding Aqueduct. 

I. For your information, the following units were guarding the Aqueduct, 
New York water supply, previous to this duty's being taken over by the First Pro- 
visional Regiment, New York Guard: 

Ist Cavalry 
Troops: A, B, C, D. 

23rd Infantry 
Companies: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, K, L, M, Machine Gun Co. 

4yth Infantry 
Companies: E, F, G, H. 

loth Infantry 
Headquarters Co., Supply Co., and Companies A, C, D. 

The Adjutant-General, 
By: James A. Blair, Jr. 
Major, I. G. D. 



Name 

1. Appian Aqueduct B 

2. Old Anio Aqueduct 

3. Marcian Aqueduct 

4. Tepulan Aqueduct 

5. Julian Aqueduct 

6. Virgin Aqueduct 

7. Alsietina Aqueduct 

8. Claudian Aqueduct 

9. New Anio Aqueduct 



CTS OF ANTIQUITY 




Era 


Length 


Cubic Feet 


Gallons 


B.C. 312 


103,250 


3,706,575 


27,724,181 




* 273 


366,77s 


8,932,338 


66,813,887 




♦ 146 


569,417 


9,525,390 


71,249,917 




• 127 




903,795 


6,760,386 




* 35 


142,341 


2,449,386 


18,321,407 




" 22 


143,116 


5,085,624 


38,040,467 




* 14 


204,526 


796,152 


5,656,016 




* 49 


421,989 


9,356,817 


96,988,991 




* 90 


541,644 


9,622,878 


71,979,127 



2,493,058 50,378,955 376,834*379 



APPENDIX II 

Original Roster of Men of First Provisional Regiment at the Time of the Organi- 
zation's Entry Into the Field. The Companies Are Listed from North 

to South. 



REGIMENTAL HEADQUARTERS 

Pines Bridge, Cioton Lake 

John B. Rose, Colonel, ist Inf. 

William L. Burnett, Lieut.-Colonel, loth Inf. 

Rowland Pell, Captain, Disbursing Officer, 12th Inf. 

Leon Brooks De Garmo, Captain, Supply Officer, 14th Inf. 

Jerome Kingsbury, Captain, Medical Officer, V. C. A. 

T. R. Hutton, Captain, Adjutant, ist Inf. 

Harry P. Williams, 2nd Lieut., Transportation Officer, V. C. A. 

John Towner, 2nd Lieut. 

FIRST BATTALION HEADQUARTERS 
Pines Bridge, Croton Lake 
William L. Hodges, Major, V. C. A. 
Frank L. Davidson, ist Lieut., V. C. A. 
Theodore T. Lane, ist Lieut., Adjutant, V. C. A. 

REGIMENTAL HEADQUARTERS NON-COM. STAFF 



Stationed at Croton Lake 



Battalion Sergeant-Major Thomas W. Therkildsen 

Sergeants 
James A. Murray, Q. M. C. Julian B. Jackson, Co. G, ist Inf. 

Thomas F. O'Connor, Q. M. C. Edward J. O'Brien, Troop G, Utica 

Charles J. Blizzard, Co. G, ist Inf. 

FIRST BATTALION NON-COM. STAFF 

Sergeant-Major George A. Drake 

Sergeants 
J. Hart Welsh Edmond J. Dixon 

REGIMENTAL HEADQUARTERS 
COMPANY G, 1st INF., N. Y. G. 

Acting First Sergeant 
John James Crotty 

Acting Supply Sergeant 
Louis Munson Baker 

Sergeants 
Roy James Briggs Charles Harold Shaddock 

George Raymond Bugbee Herman Adelbert Pearsall 

Corporal 
Melville Dewely Johnson 
30 



460 



H-A-L-TT !— WHA-ZAA ? 



Frank J. McFee 



Leon Maurice Cook 
Frank Wendell Couse 
Herman Rose Church 
Hewitt Hendricks 
Arnold Edwin Hopkins 



Cooks 

Charles William Sigsbee 
William Henry Yates 

Privates 

Harry Frederick Knifer 
Earl William Merrill 
Clarence Edwin Roth 
Edwin George Wadin 
Ernest Sylvester Walker 



Acting Bugler 
Russell Lee Stapleton 

SECOND BATTALION HEADQUARTERS 
New Paltz 
Charles J. Lamb, Major, ist Inf. 

Maurice S. Damon, Captain, Court Officer, ist Cavalry 
Clarence M. Bechtol, ist Lieut., Adjutant, ist Inf. 
Charles A. Clinton, ist Lieut., Asst. Medical Officer, V. C. A. 
Elmer H. Miller, 2nd Lieut., Supply Officer, Q. M. C. 

SECOND BATTALION 
Company B, 1st Inf., N. Y. G., Utica. Stationed at Da vies Corners 



First-Lieut. Stewart W. Richards 
First-Sergt. Thomas P. McGuiness 
Supply-Sergt. Louis A. Welch 
Mess.-Sergt. Albert Dyer 
Sergt. Selbach 



Acting-Sergt. Hebry H. Kelsey 
Acting-Sergt. Charles B. Hornung 
Acting-Sergt. William J. Brockert 
Corp. Thomas W. Lawson 
Acting Corp. Herbert P. Brayman 



Cook Francis T. Golden 



Privates 



S. N. Abounder 
I. W. Ashley 
L. W. Baltzell 
C. J. Bellinger 

E. D. Carpenter 
L. O. Carpenter 

F. A. Coss 

E. J. Dillon 
J. L. Evans 

C. H. Evansperger 
J. H. Fay 
C. J. Fitch 
W. T. Griffith 
W. O. Hughes 
I. E. Jones 
H. F. Karl 

F. J. Loftus 
S. J. Pugh 
J. A. Sears 
H. O. Seufert 
A. T. Sheppard 



L. S. Snyder 
J. Soltys 
L. Soltys 
S. Soltys 
H. Steber 
R. J. Stocker 

F. D. Sweeney 
S. W. Taylor 
Clyde Tew 

C. Truesdale 
R. C. Volmer 
Ernest Van Hosen 
Clarence Waters 
Theo. A. Waters 

G. C. Weipe 
J. Whalen 
Claude C. Whimplc 
Whitcomb 
Harold Williams 
W. Yost 

G. P. Zipp 



APPENDIX II 



461 



COMPANY A, 1st INF., N. Y. G. 
Utica 



Stationed at Atwood 



Capt. Alfred Broadbent 


Mess-Sergt. Philip O'Toole 


First-Lieut. C. B. Cleary 


Supply-Sergt. Wm. A. Rivers 


First-Sergt. Earle T. Richards Sergt. Geo. H. Field 




Sergeants 


Thomas N. Pritchard 


Wm. F. Wirth 


Edward W. Winslow 


Guy I. Barger 




Corporals 


Chas. E. Myer 


Wallace M. Hughes 


Orson M. Buck 


Claude J. Midlam 


Louis E. Rothstein 


Walter W. Heath 




Cooks 


Wm. J. Graves 


Chas. M. Manning 




Buglers 


Louis Furtunate 


Lester R. Pugh 




Mechanic 




Chas. S. King 




Privates, First Class 


Jay V. Barnard 


Joseph A. Hasenauer 


Leroy H. Brucker 


John M. Jones 


Stanley S. Ehle 


Leo G. Kane 




John F. Pacius 




Privates 


Edward J. Barton 


John F. Kristner 


Oscar L. Bratz 


Frank Marron 


Carl V. Brower 


Chas. A. Maxwell 


Jarry A. Devereux 


Claude E. Mercer 


Wm. A. Dillon 


Chester A. Mather 


Chas. E. Eiseman 


August Pacius 


Delos M. Guillaume 


Reese Phillips 


Louis F. Heath 


Wm. M. Phillips 


Carl R. Heath 


Leslie G. Platler 


Fred D. Ingraham 


Chas. A. Plumb 


Wm. E. Keitch 


Thomas P. Rosinski 




Wm. Rothenburg 



COMPANY H, 1st INF. 
Binghamton 



N. Y. G. 



Stationed at "The Peak," near High Falls 



Capt. J. Roy Wilbur First-Sergt. Andrew B. Suttle 

First-Lieut. Chas. H. Hinman Supply-Sergt. Arthur E. Potter 

Mess-Sergt. Arthur A. Smith 



462 H-A-L-ll!— WHA-ZAAr 




Sergeants 


Chas. D. Tyler 


George F. Doty 


Henry Thomas 


LeRoy R. Barnes 




Fred H. Lown 




Corporals 


Merritt E. Hull 


Perry W. Griffith 


Leland N. Cornelius 


Frank H. Montrose 




Leroy W. Hutslander 




Cooks 


George L. Young 


Lynne H. Arend 




Buglers 


Clayton H. Parsons 


Roy T. Hutchins 




Privates 


Harold M. Anderson 


Delbert Lent 


Herbert L. Alexander 


Leland C. Lewis 


Leonard R. Bouton 


Herbert N. Livermore 


Merrill D. Beam 


Edward M. Lyons 


Chas. H. Brown 


John D. Manning 


J. Walter Barnes 


Edwin J. McEwan 


Geo. W. H. Calyer 


Harry J. Matoon 


Edward P. Calyer 


Wilford E. McKown 


Walter E. Cheeseman 


Earl B. McLand 


Halbert M. Cinnamond 


Elmer L. McLand 


Homer J. Clinton 


Stewart L. Newing 


Frederick H. Corbin 


Paul B. Parce 


Patrick T. Coulter 


Elihue Payne 


Byron Geo. Delaney 


WiUiam Horace Payne 


Ralph D. Depugh 


Howard E. Potter 


Frank C. DifFenderfer 


Roy E. Ransome 


Earl J. Edwards 


John A. Reardon 


Harry Farrar 


Harold Harry Saxton 


George H. Grau 


Geo. M. Shandar 


Schuyler E. Gray 


Harry C. Stewart 


Grant M. Harding 


Stanley D. Terwilliger 


Leo D, Heath 


Orvell F. Travis 


Leroy S. Kent 


Gerald J. Troy 


Howard Kinsman 


Carl Weston 


Floyd Nelson Kipp 


Clarence E. Whitman 


Geo. Henry Kishpaugh 


Harry W. Winson 



TROOP B, 1st CAVALRY, N. Y. G. 



Stationed near New Paltz 



First-Lieut. Frank M. VanNouhuys First-Sergt. John J. Burke 

Second-Lieut. Edgar B. Clerk Supply-Sergt. Chas. E. Kelly 

Mess-Sergt. Harold E. Parkman 



Thomas R. Burke 
Frank A. McCuUough 
John O'C. Fish 



Sergeants 

John J. Connors 
Emerson C. Gray 
Frank E. Hills 



APPENDIX? II 



463 



Thomas A. O'Malley 
Garrett R. Forster 
Eugene J. Malone 
Robert B. Convery 
John R. McCormack 



John W. Alberts 
John W. Erasure 
John S. Bantham 
Frederick L. Bennett 
James H. Clancy 
Harry F. Campbell 
J. Fred Clarke 
Henry G. Cowan 
John Cregan 
William H. Cameron 
Hildreth P. Drew 
Clarence De Forest 
Charles E. Davenpeck 
George D. Earll 
Donald R. Ferris 
John V. Fischer 
Ambrose G, Gleason 
James J. Gallagher 
Charles H. Humer 
Joseph M. Hughes 
Ralph L. Happel 
Edgar Jacobs 
Arthur S. Lewis 
Willard B. Lewis 
Howard F. Lewis 
Algernon S. Laelor 



Corporals 

Charles T. Terry 
Frederick E. Gillen 
Walter S. Gillen 
Douglas S. Williams 
Chester J. Atkinson 
Felix Cantamessner 



Privates 



William J. Mahar 
Thomas McCarthy 
Dayton B. Mochrie 
John E. Marshall 
John J. O'Reilly 
Michael J. O'Henry 
Miles Paley 
John J. Patterson 
Kenneth F. Rossman 
Willard G. RufF 
Erwin J. Sanders 
William K. Spatz 
Tremaine A. Thayer 
Peter C. Todd 
Frank J. Taafe 
Milton J. Van Bergen 
Arnold G. Van Laer 
Lewis N. Van Alstyne 
Harold R. White 
James J. Wagner 
Adrean E. Young 
Raymond D. Zeilman 
Elmer G. Wallace 
Charles Effler 
Albert Notovagi 
Walter K. Scim. 



COMPANY C, 1st INF., N. Y. G. 



Stationed at Camp Ball, Gardiner 



Capt. T. M. H. Jackson 
First-Lieut. William J. Rivers 
Second-Lieut. Bion Leroy Greene 
First-Sergt. John J. GafFner 
Mess-Sergt. Charles E. Smith 



William Carscallen 
Lloyd J. Steele 
Edward G. Visscher 



John J. McDonald 



First-Duty-Sergt. John W. Maloney 
Second-Duty-Sergt. Claude Jones 
Third-Duty-Sergt. George Genter 
Provost-Sergt. Frank F. Grenier 
Senior-Corp. John J. O'Brien 

Corporals 

Charles Sweeney 
Leo A. Draper 
Clarence W. Daly 

Cooks 

Carl Morris 



464 



H-A-L-TT !— WHA-ZAA ? 



James Allen Arthur 
Clyde E. Berkman 
William Sidney Brown 
Orville A. Brown 
John Brown 
William Brown 
Ernest E. Boynton 
Walter R. Cuppernell 
George Edward Coulter 
John Lawrence Chase 
Clarence Wesley Dailey 
Roy Dempster 
Lawrence Denio 
James T. Duchane 
Clarence Wilfred Daly 
Floyd Leonard Daly 
John Daws 

Benjamin Edward Ellis 
Joseph Evans 
Frank Frederick 
Percy Collins Farmer 
Joseph Edward Fitzpatrick 
Owen Francis Gregory 
Houghton Mann Grieb 
Clifford Thomas Halwig 
Everett B. Hunt 
Joseph Lewis Houlihan 
William Henry Huntley 
Marvin Edward Huntley 
Charles Ellsworth Jones 



Mechanic 
Charles E. Clark 

Company Clerk 
Gardiner E. Vincent 

Privates 

Samuel Adolf Jareo 

Alfred Joseph Knight 

Leo Peter Lacomb 

Albert Joseph Laffnere 

Thomas Lane 

Albert Luden 

Francis Roderick McGinnis 

Fred McKnight 

Charles Carl Mullen 

Davis Wallace Mullen 

Lyle M. Morris 

Daniel O'Connell 

Arthur Patchin 

John A. Parker 

Leonard A. Pfister 

Hiram Post 

Howard Herbert Provonga 

Edwin Harold Provonga 

Frederick Blain Pooler 

Edward Albert Roshia 

Robert Warner Simmons 

Oliver Wilber Sabray 

John Edward Sharp 

Glen Schofield 

Frederick Charles Thompson 

Robert Frederick Wood 

Andrew Jackson Wilcox 

Robert Waldron 

Emery Bellenger 

William Robinson 



COMPANY K, 10th INF., N. Y. G. 



Frank Hall 
H. Gildersleeve 

Claude Adams 
Homer Baker 
Wallace Becker 
William Brenner 
William Comisky 
Harold Cady 
Silas Dewitt 



Stationed at Camp '76, Gardiner 



Senior-Corp. Francis McCoy 

Corporals 

Irving Gunn 
James Morton 

Privates 

Raymond Duncan 
Edward Dean 
Elmer Dressier 
John Elderkin 
Feri Feorvinti 
Charles Giddings 
Joseph Meehan 



APPENDIX II 



465 



James Miller 
Francis Mackey 
Charles Near 
John Osterhouse 
Charles Peluse 
Parrotti 

Maynard E. Parker 
Peter Quirk 



Privates — Continued 

Kenneth Rosenburgh 
Jerome Simmons 
Emery Rogers 
Roy Temper 
Elmer Vance 
James Valinao 
Herbert Woodin 
Ralph Woodin 
Lucias Smith 



TROOP G, 1st CAVALRY, N. Y. G. 



Stationed at Camp Alaska, Walden 



Capt. Addison H. Westcott 
First-Lieut. A. C. Gilbert 
Second-Lieut. Clifford P. Servatius 

Leon Todd 
Carl Blust 

Robert Smith 
Ivor Jones 
Ray Gschwind 
Victor G. Salladin 



First-Sergt. A. L. Rego 
Mess-Sergt. James Jabbour 
Supply-Sergt. A. P. Carpenter 

Sergeants 

Edris Wynne 
A. G. Kallasy 

Corporals 

Clare Rhodes 
Nemer Ferris 
A. Joseph 
Donald Mills 



J. F. McDonald 

Joseph Antoun 

Robert Burns 

Shalaep Ballanah 

Alexander Cossessetti 

Paur Coury 

M. Costanzo 

Denniston 

Everett Evans 

J. O. Evans 

L. Ferris 

Samuel Hallett 

Moses Haddad 

Milad Hobica 

S. Karam 

B. L. Kassing 

M. Kader 

A. Kline 

L. Leone 

James George 



Trumpeter 
Harry Zady 

Mechanic 

Roy Noyes 

Cooks 

Nellis GafFney 

Privates 

Herschell Pugh 

A. Perry 

M. Roche 

Dewey Rudd 

J. Rogers 

George Shamon 

Charles Shamon 

Moses Shamon 

C. D. Smart 

Lyle Smith 

William Thayer 

Penwarden 

G. Joseph 

H. Hobica 

Berges Joseph 

Albert Joseph 

W. R. Jones 

E. J. O'Brien (special duty) 

William J. Phalon 



466 



H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

TROOP H, 1st CAVALRY 



Formerly stationed near Walden 



First-Lieut. Howard Coverse 
Second-Lieut. William C. Barry 
First-Sergt. Atkinson Allen 



Supply-Sergt. Freeman C. Allen 
Mess-Sergt. E. Frank Brewster, Jr. 
Stable-Sergt. Stalham S. Baker 



Julius H. White 



E. Clinton Wolcott 
Charles H. Chapin 



Arthur E. Bates 
Francis R. Bellamy 
Clarence K. Carlson 
Floyd E. Carson 
John W. Castle 
Howard M. Cook 
Frederick S. Cookesley 
L. Philip Fahy 
George C. Fichter 
Jerry B. Foster 
Richard M. Harris 
George H. Hawks 
Alexander Hough 
Howard S. Kellogg 
William H. McCann 



Sergeants 

Augustus H. Smith 
Mortimer R. Anstice 

Corporals 

Embry MacDowell 
Wilmot V. Castle 
Kenneth C. Townson 

Privates 

Sheldon MacCartney 
Leander M. McCord 
R. Evershed Myers 
Martin B. Potter 
Arthur G. Seitz 
Lu F. Sherman 
Louis R. Smith 
L. Walton Smith 
Herbert W. Spears 
Joseph F. Taylor 
W. Herbert Wall 
De Witt C. Ward 
Ernest L. White 
Henry C. White 
Chauncey C. Woodworth 
John Francis Weller 

COMPANY F, 10th INF. 



Stationed at Vail's Gate Junction 



Capt. Benedict GifFord 
First-Lieut. Edward L. Harder 
Second-Lieut. A. Tremain McKinstry 



Supply-Sergt. Arthur M. Pultz 
First-Sergt. Mark Rosenthal 
Mess-Sergt. Everett V. Kline 



Harry Propst 
George H. Armstrong 



William Oxbrough 
Cornelius V. Van de Carr 
George D. Sitler 
Harry Sutherland 
G, Foster Buckman 



Sergeants 

Martin H. Propst 
Harry V. Coons 
David C. Patterson 

Corporals 

Edward Lewis Dorland 
Floyd Lasher 
Frank Van Valkenburg 
Justin C. Wood 
Andrew Mackin 

Cook 
Walter Roe 



APPENDIX II 



467 



James Shea 



Morris Brady 
William B. Caswell, Jr. 
Raymond Dallas 
Thomas Kilmer 
Frank Maisenbacher 



Buglers 

Earl Kraft 

Privates, First Class 

James Ritchie 
Max Rosenfeld 
Jeremiah Rundell 
Harry J. Sagendorph 
Lawrence Staples 



Augustus C. F. Obermeyer, Jr. 



Alfred Teator 



Barton T. Aken 
Floyd Baker 
Thomas Baldwin 
George Bartholomew 
Leo Bernockie 
George R. Boody 
Thomas Bratton 
Edgar Brennan 
James Lyle Brown 
Rensselaer D. Bush 
Cameron Carroll 
Clayton Coons 
Lloyd G. Coons 
Herbert G. Dallas 
Homer L. Decker 
Harry A. Decker 
Joseph Leo Delaney 
Joseph Donohue 
Charles E. Durnham 
Joseph Durnak 
Frederick Eaton 
Arthur Finch 
Joseph E. Ford 
George Glover 
Guy Glover 
John H. Halloran 
Ellsworth Ham 
George Harder, Jr. 
Maurice Harlow 
Dennis Hayes 
Andrew F. Hoose 
Thomas Vincent Howe 
Edward E. Hughes 
Stuart A. Hunter 
Henry Jackwitz 
Fred Jones 
James J. Kennedy 
George Kirkham 
Henry Langlois 
f^Usworth Laurange 



Privates 

Otto Matheis 
John F. McConnell 
James J. McEvoy 
Earl Meguirt 
Arland J. Miller 
Clarence Miller 
Herschell H. Miller 
William Montague 
Cyrus Myers, Jr. 
Edward Nonamaker 
Gerald O'Connell 
Vernon Palen 
Irving Pearsall 
Frank Phillips 
Walter W. Plater 
Chester Randolph 
Harry M. Reynolds 
William Robertson 
Arthur Roraback 
Lawrence Rockefeller 
James Rogers 
Richard A. Rossman 
Arthur Rote 
Raymond Shea 
Anson ShefFer 
Leroy ShefFer 
Jacob Sheldon 
Julius Simonson 
Charles C. Smith 
Richard A. Storm 
Robert Teator 
George Van Etten 
Luther Van Etten, Jr. 
Robert Van Tassel 
Lester E. Van Vleck 
Edward Vaughn 
Henry Walch 
John Warren 
Harold G. Waters 
Samuel Wright 
William B. Wrigley 



468 



H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 



FIRST BATTALION 
BATTERY C, 1st F. A., N. Y. G. 



Stationed at Breakneck 



Capt. John W. Johnson 
First-Lieut. Otis D. Eaton 



James Mercall Blair 
Gomer James Pritchard 



Harry Francis Whitmarsh 
Ivan Eaton 
Linneans Barton 
Wm. Darwin McCann 



Howard Adamy 

Edward Park Agnew 

Emerson Ralph Agnew 

Edward Leon Allen 

Fred Ward Allen 

Roy Avery 

Frank Avery 

John Lewis Barton 

Jesse Ray Barrows 

Burt Barrows 

Clyde Wakeford Bowers 

Burtt Henry Albion 

Wallace Jay Buck 

Roy Arthur Cole 

Harry B. Chrysler 

Leonard Judson Colony 

Joseph Samuel Densmore 

Fred Judson Durfee 

Daniel Demock Devine 

Charles David Eckert 

Marvin Ernest Focht 

Charles Henry Fedora 

Benjamine Franklin Ferguson 

Walter Gee 

Edward Leland Green 

Howard William Gibbs 

Nathan Mesline Gilbert 

James Arthur Green 

Charles Francis Griswold 

Robert Wesley Harvey 

Wm. Frank Husted 

John Malatis Hotchkiss 

Earl Howard 

Floyd Barton Hinchman 



Second-Lieut. Carl Robinson 
First-Sergt. Leroy Melvin Landon 

Sergeants 

Henry Fayette Landon 
William Patt Vincent 
Charles Olin Johnson 



Corporals 

Robert Frailey 
Clesson Mace 
Frank Butts 
L. B. Lambert 



Privates 



Elmer Niles Hesse 
Ralph Warren Hilsinger 
Harry Saymore Jennings 
Daniel Harold Lynch 
Harvey Latourette 
Harold Lad Mack 
Clarence B. Miller 
Ernest Wm. Mathewson 
Louis Morse Major 
Roy Henry Matson 
Arthur John Nutter 
Leon Joseph Osborne 
Raymond Leo Osterhout 
John Paul Putnam 
Charles TrafFord Peebles 
E. Earl Rodgers 
Wm. Charles Robinson 
Clifford Lewis Robinson 
Wm. Gordon Robinson 
Ralph Berdette Standish 
Ward Douglas Snow 
Louis Begley Stack 
George Walton Stone 
Leonard Alfred Smith 
Arthur John Standish 
Stephen Mack Smith 
Andy Oscar Smith 
Trevette Smith 
Floyd Elisha Sprague 
Charles Henry Scudder 
Lawrence Trenton Smith 
Clarence James Terwilliger 
Henry Albert Tuckerman 
Charles J. Twinning 



APPENDIX II 



469 



Gilbert Benson Tybring 
Frederick Lines Vergason 
Leroy Van Patten 
Clyde Lewis Vaow 
Losey Annand Whitcomb 
Lewis Addison Wright 
James Markes Waldron 



Privates — Continued 

Wm. Car Weingardner 
Walter James Whitman 
Truman Gardner Westcott 
Louis Perry Whitmarsh 
George Conklin Wilber 
Floyd Leroy Wright 
Harold Horace Wilson 

Carl Lynn Whitmarsh 



FOURTH COMPANY, 9th C. A. C, N. Y. G. 



Stationed at Peekskill 



Capt. John M. Thompson 



Second-Lieut. 



First-Lieut. H. 
David Liken 



B. Welsh 



Paul Poveromo 
James J. Kiernan 
William L. C. Stiles 
William F. DeVierneri 



Walter C. Meagher 
George McAllister 
George W. Marsh 
Charles Palladino 



Angus J. Thompson 



Sergeants 

Thomas A. Frawley 
John J. O'Malley 
Winfield H. Demoody 
Alexander Clinton 
Charles Rubine 

Corporals 

Harris Commer 
George Cornell 
Anthony Salimbebe 
Fred W. Cordes 

Musicians 

William Margraf 

Mechanic 
John T. Noonan 



Cooks 



James C. Griffin 



Tracey Karpf 
John J. Kennedy 
David J. Kurtz 
John J. Larkin 
Max Lechner 
Joseph Leddie 
John M. Lupo 
James Lynch 
Frank Marino 
Charles Mauro 
Frank A. Mazzao 
Michael Meinsinger 
Sidney Meltzer 
Thomas Molloy 



James Easillg 



Privates 



Humbert Morizzi 
Elias A. Nathan 
Cornelius T. Nelson 
Paul Ponzarelli 
Joseph J. Pape 
Richard Pica 
Sam Pollock 
William Polombo 
James Raleigh 
William R. Reid 
Joseph Ronan 
Frank Rooney 
William Rooney 
Millan Rosenblum 



470 



H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 



Dominick Rublno 
John Ryan 
Edward Samuels 
Harry SchlinicofF 
Walter E. Scott 
Joseph Sherman 
David Silver 
Michael J. Smith 
Alfred Spirlto 
Alfred Sponza 
John Sullivan 



Privates — Continued 

John J. Synan 
Frank Tortelli 
Nicholas Froise 
John TuUy 
George Uchlein 
George Van Nest 
Samuel Weisberg 
Joseph F. Whalen 
Jerome Wingers 
Harry Witt 
Richard Lynch 



BATTERY A, 1st F. A., N. Y. G. 



Stationed at Valhalla 



Capt. Leo C. Harte 
First-Lieut. Grover C. Weed 
Second-Lieut. Frederick L. Stone 



First-Sergt. James H. Hayes 
Supply-Sergt. James E. Hayes 
Mess-Sergt. Edward T. Towne 





Sergeants 


Harold P. Land 


Gregory M. Dixon 


Wells Wise 


Ottimer Boullee 




Corporals 


Ralph Edic 


Joseph H. Luton 


Joseph Grenier 


Robert F. Scott 


John P. HofFman 


Sidney Wolfe 




Mechanics 


Sharpe 


Lee 




Cooks 


Joslyn 


Maloney 




Musicians 


Hack 


Parlln 




Privates 


Battalle 


Lyman 


Brown 


MacMasters 


Butler 


McCabe 


Busch 


Meyers 


Coon Crosby 


Murdoch 


Davis 


McElhaney 


De Perrior 


Rubinstein 


De Bello 


Simpson 


Eichelberger 


Stangland 


Gee 


Walters 


Guenthner 


H. Watson 


Hackbarth 


R. Watson 


Harrington 


Wilson 


Jennings 


Whalen 


Johnson 


Yorman 



APPENDIX II 

COMPANY B, 12th INF., N. Y. G. 



471 



Stationed at Millwood 



Capt. Ernest T. Van Zandt First-Lieut. Edward Strauss 

First-Lieut. Irving J. Ussiker Second-Lieut. Edward J. Murphy 

Second-Lieut. Arthur Wynne 



Thomas A. Dougherty 
Thomas J. Carney 
William Corrie 



Joseph Brady 
James J. Corbett 
Samuel Frank 



Harry O. Smith 
Frederick Ernst 
William E. Marsh 
James Quirk 
Leonard H. Niles 
Herbert Jungeman 
George Liebman 
William Erdman 
Arthur McNally 
Vincent Saldano 



Samuel Aaron 
Raphael Attansio 
William Becker 
Frank Becker 
Seth Beale 
Herbert Brogan 
Joseph Blewitt 
Edward Brooks 
Morris Berenberg 
William Burns 



First Sergeants 

Thomas Abe Macray 

Supply Sergeants 

William Anthony 

Mess Sergeants 

John Naylor 

Sergeants 

Eric Hoffing 
Charles Dunleavy 
Thomas A. Caulfield 
Samuel C. Allen 

Corporals 

Charles Bright 
Howard GrifFen 
Abraham Levine 
Joseph Citron 
Douglass Esterly 
William T. Duke 
John J. O'Neill 
George H. Healy 
James E. Reynolds 
Victor C. Lewis 

Musician 
George Maschke 

Mechanic 
Willard Van Tine 

Privates 

Thomas Butler 
Alfred Brown 
Max Burnstein 
Eugene Brown 
Peter Boyle 
Ralph Bencivingo 
Edward Brady 
Harry Ball 
Robert Creevy 
Stephen Chapman 



472 



H-A-L-TT ! —WHA-ZAA ? 



Chauncey Cass 
Frank Calvello 
Edward Carroll 
Patrick Conlon 
Michael Carmody 
John Carroll 
William Condon 
Anthony De Stefano 
James Dundon 
Louis Deutsch 
Peter Dugan 
James Duffy 
John Delaney 
George Degnan 
Andrew Dunn 
Henry Englander 
James Esterbrook 
Eugene Engle 
Peter Foley 
Harry Feigenbaum 
Donald Furlong 
John Fribance 
Isadore Furman 
William Falkner 
Salvatore Gerardi 
Anthony Greco 
Jacob Greene 
Cornelius Gleason 
John Gebhardt 
William Gilchrist 
Stanley Glogoczewski 
Thomas Hudson 
Ralph Howard 
Edward Hirsch 
Gabriel Hadispidida 
WilUam Hughes 
Jacob A. Henkin 
William Harrison 
Walter Harrison 
Walter Harris 
Lewis Jouver 
Chester R. Jones 
Jerome Kelner 
John J. Kelly 
Albert Kopsky 
John J. Keating 
Alfred Kohn 
Edward Laird 
Frank Letto 
Howard Magee 
William Morris 
Arthur Manley 



Privates — Continued 

James Moylan 
Neil Murphy 
Eugene Murphy 
John McKee 
Eugene McCloskey 
WiUiam McDonald 
John McMahon 
John McGowan 
Thomas T. McSherry 
Joseph NicoUeti 
James T. Ovens 
William O'Neil 
Michael O'Keefe 
John A. Palmer 
Louis Papelsky 
William Pittman 
Carmine Pisonelli 
Harry Piper 
James Pearsall 
Walter Paul 
John F. Quirk 
Herman Rothstein 
Morris Robinson 
Milton Ross 
Victor Rossi 
John Russo 
John Rappell 
August Ruppert 
William Roauer 
Mario Saraci 
Frank Shade 
Edward J. Schultz 
George Schadt 
James Swindell 
Joseph Schiff 
William Simon 
Dennis Sullivan 
George Story 
Thomas Sheridan ' 
John Sheehan 
Michael Spiridi 
Max Tworoger 
Gustave Thomas 
Bruno Veltri 
Phillip Viesohn 
Albert Welte 
William Webster 
Philip Warren 
Bernard Wynne 
Chester Walker 
William Whitfield 
Stewart Welsh 
Julius Wasserman 



APPENDIX II 



473 



COMPANY C, DEPOT BATTALION 
7th INFANTRY, N. Y. G. 



Stationed at Pleasantville 



Capt. James R. Stewart 
First-Lieut. Francis D. Clark 
Second-Lieut. Edwin M. Leask 



Hamline Q. French, Jr. 
Robert S. Pollock 



Silas B. Bostwick, Jr. 
Thomas Watson Ball 
Roland R. Carter 
Frank G. Doran 
Louis F. Eggers 



Daniel Adams 
Charles H. Arnold 
Richard H. Arnold 
WiUiam F. H. Armstrong 
Gilbert H. Bagot 
Charles L. Ball 
Thomas R. Ball 
James F. Casey 
Charles S. Clark, Jr. 
George H. Clay 
Walter S. Goldsmith 
George V. Gustos 
Frank Hale 
Harold C. Hansen 
Henry J. Harding, Jr. 
William V. Heenan 
Howard S. Holt 
John C. Hutchinson 



First-Sergt. Frost M. Wheeler 
Supply-Sergt. Chas. T. Leonard 
Mess-Sergt. Irving Sands 

Sergeants 

Lodivicus H. Sanford 
Joseph Hudson 

Corporals 

Charles B. Kent 
Alexander L. Anderson 
Merritt Crawford 
Albert Bardes 
Eugene Nelson Ehrhart 
Charles F. Burg 



Privates 



George P. Jackson 
Richard F. Kennellie 
James F. Levens 
William F. Loss 
Frank G. McDougall 
Leslie W. May 
William Nagle 
Thomas Cakes 
George H. Richards 
Joseph A. Schaefer 
Lawrence C. Sagona 
George A. Sherwood 
George R. Spies 
George W. Spurgeon 
Frederick C. Terry 
Frank S. Ulbig 
Edward Wanty 
George S. Watkinson 



COMPANY D, 71st INF., N. Y. G. 



Stationed at East Pleasantville 



Capt. William B. Miles 
First-Lieut. A. B. Smith 
Second-Lieut. Richard H. Smith 



G. F. Hawkins 
W. A. Deverall 
M. S. Parker 



First-Sergt. Owen Coogan 
Mess-Sergt. C. A. Benedict 
Supply-Sergt. C. S. Martin 

Sergeants 

C. L. Bell 
J. W. Dutton 
J. J. Regan 



474 



H-A-L-TT !— WHA-ZAA ? 



J. R. Brandon 
M. S. Hebert 
C. L. Rossiter, Jr. 
P. L. Clarke 



R. Berry 
R. A. Bonner 
J. J. Bulleld 
H. C. Cromwell 
C. Dout 
L. B. EUert 
J. J. Finnell 
H. J. Foster 
N. W. Gage 
J. B. Haviland 
C. Hyde 
O. S. Hebert 
M. Hatheway 
W. L. HofF 
W. H. Journeay 
E. F. Lafin 
J. J. Linherr 
C. S. Lowther 
L. E. Linser 



Corporals 

C. L. Taylor 
L. F. R. Conklin 
H. B. Ludlum 
J. T. McGovern 
F. W. Ingalls 

Privates 

R. J. Lewis 
C. R. Logan 
C. E. Mitchell 
C. C. Musgrave 
H. L. Miller 
R. O'Byrne 

F. M. Pederson 
A. C. Plummer 

G. L. Robinson 
J. P. Rogers 

J. A. Schaefer 
J. P. Skelly 
E. J. Simpson 
J. J. Sandford 
C. H. Stoneback 
J. Stafford 
E. Vyborne 
E. E. Vidaud 
A. Wintraechen 
P. C. Whipp 



PROVISIONAL BATTERIES A AND B. V. C. A. 



At Kensico Dam, Elmsford, Ardsley, Fort Hill Road and Tuckahoe Road 



First-Lieut. Frank E. Davidson, Adj. Second-Lieut. H. Pushae Williams, 

Surg. Jerome Kingsbury, Asst. Surg. Supply Duty 
Sergt.-Maj. Lloyd R. Stark 

Provisional Battery A 

Capt. S. Edson Gage First-Sergt. Francis L. Woodburn 

First-Lieut. Theodore T. Lane Supply-Sergt. Norman F. Cushman 

First-Lieut. Raymond L. Taft Mess-Sergt. Raymond N. Hyde 

Sergeants and Acting Sergeants 

John T. Harrison Winfred F. Mack 

William Douglas Owens Sterling P. Story 

Francis J. Hopson William H. Smith 

Walter R. Jones Edgar Day Knap 



Ethelbert L. Low 
Alfred J. ChatiUon 
Orlando P. Metcalf 
Harold V. Story 
Howard K. Coolidge 
Archibald Douglas 
Frederick G. Clapp 



Corporals and Acting Corporals 



John T. Moffett 
William W. Knowles 
Frank H. Rossiter 
Morris Willetz 
C. B. Struthers 
Clarence H. Young 
Reginald C. Knickerbocker 



APPENDIX II 



475 



Howard Otis Adams 
Harry S. Handler 
Ira H. Brainard 
John W. Brannan, M.D. 
Wilbur Brundage 
Charles B. Bradbury 
George T. Brokaw 
William H. Bleecker 
Jarvis P. Carter 
D. B. R. Chapman 
Robert S. Chapin 
J. Bruce Chittenden 
Clarence F. Cavanaugh 
Thomas Clark 
Charles Mayer Coryell 
Frederick S. Crofts 
George L. Darte 
Pierpont Davis 
Norman S. De Forrest 

D. Parker Doremus 
William C. Dornin 
Walter F. Dyett 
Thomas L. Elder 
Arthur E. Eldridge 
Arthur F. Elliot 
Earl H. Emmons 
William E. Evans 
H. Palmer Gallagher 

E. Curtis Gillespie 
Charles F. Gould 
Bishop S. Harrold 
Schuyler Hamilton 
Edwin J. Hodges 
Artemus Holmes 
Mark G. Holstein 
Harry Howard 
Ernest A. Howe 
Richard Fenley Hunter 
Charles L. Jones 
Charles W. Knight 
Eugene J. Koop 
Redmond Keresey, Jr. 
L. U. La Cour 



Privates 

Harry Leonard 
Alfred L. Lane 
Charles A. Lewis 
Herbert R. Lawrence 
Floyd M. Lord 
Walter L. Mann 
Sigourney Mellor 
Herbert C. MacKenzie 
Henry E. Nason 
Charles A. Nasmith 
Frederick W. Nicholas 
Robert L. Pierrepont 
Stephen A. Powell 
Frank W. Richardson 
T. J. 0. Rhinelander 
Charles C. Roberts 
Lewis D. Root 
Harold E. Richards 
H. Crag Severance 
WilUam H. Smith 
George H. Stegman 
H. Bordman Spalding 
John R. Strong 
William L. Somerville 
Loudon Swinton 
Walter C. Sampson 
A. Parker Smith 
Archibald D. Tappan 
Henry E. Tobey 
Frederick K. Trask 
Lathrop Thatcher 
J. H. Walkley 
John H. Welch 
William L. Wimple 
Howard F. Whistler 
J. Davenport Willis 
Melvin L. White 
William P. Wainwright 
Remsen T. Williams 
Ernest F. M. Wye 
Percy A. Yalden 
Clarence H. Young 
George A. Zabriskie 



Provisional Battery B 
Capt. Adam T. Shurick Second-Lieut. EUectus T. Backus 

First-Lieut. John M. Perry First-Sergt. Albert H. Hastorf 

Supply-Sergt. Arista M. Ferguson 

Sergeants and Acting Sergeants 
Gabe F. Cazell James H. Pinckney 

Willoughby J. Kingsbury Guy N. Lamont 

William G. Lowther Edward D. Moir 

T. O'Connor Sloan James G. Purdy 

31 



476 



H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 



William F. Howard 
Henry D. Brandyce 
Hugh C. Guiler 



Corporals and Acting Corporals 



Raymond H. Mandeville 
Walter H. Wright 
George R. Hotaling 



A. K. Alford 
F. A. Annette 
John D. Armstrong 
Frank J. Allen 
James C. Ayer 
Kingsley Bailor 
Werner Boecklin 
L. Millens Burt 
Roland G. Brown 
H. H. Baukhage 
S. P. Beebe 
Robert A. Bright 
Bernard Callingham 
Charles A. Clinton 
Frederick F. Crofts 
Edward K. Crook 
Gene Carr 
Richard T. Childs 
SafFord A. Crummey 
Harold N. Cox 
William H. Davis 
Edward T. Dempsey 
John A. Dimond 
J. T. L. Doughty 
Griswold T. Daggett 
R. W. B. Elliott 
George H. Ford 
Bentley Gardiner 
Carl H. Gronbeck 
O. W. Graves 
Edward B. Gregory 
William L. Harriss 
Herbert Henshaw 
Frank H. Hill 
Spencer B. Hopping 
Alvin M. Higgins 
George W. Johnson 
W. Irving Kent 
Karl W. Kirchway 
Edward A. Kane 
James E. Kooser 
John Larkin 
Francis G. Loyd 
James S. Laing 



Privates 

Howard C. Lambert 
John F. Mason 
Oliver W. Mallaby 
Charles H. Moore 
Lewis F. Mohr 
D. Percy Morgan 
Thomas Riley Murray 
Robert E. Pearson 
J. Loyd Price 
Gomer H. Reese 
William T. Richmond 
Harry A. L. Sand 
Charles A. Sherman 
Charles B. Smith 
George C. Smith, Jr. 
J. Beford Shope 
James A. Sweet 
Thomas Strong 
Henry W. Thomas 
Edward Van Wagenen 
Ernest G. Victor 
Robert Wylie, Jr. 
Louis B. Wilson 
Edwin Irvine Haines 
George E, Cruse 
R. Nast 

Arthur V. Lyall 
William B. Timlin 
Eugene R. Verdin 
Patrick O'Reilly 
Frederick Cauchois 
J. W. Goodwin - "■ 
John Leahey 
S. F. Floyd 
George Schwab 
D. N. Sarkisian 
W. W. Bruce 
H. B. Zeron 
A. E. Corkett 
Charles A. Van Rennsselaer 
Kingsland Ballou 
J. C. Tressler 
Earl H. Emmons 
R. Carr 
John Ward Dunsmore 



APPENDIX II 



477 



COMPANY F, 1st INF., N. Y. G. 



Stationed at Elmsford 



Capt. Arthur E. Connor 
Second-Lieut. Rae C. Launt 

Supply-Sergt. 



First-Sergt. Marshall T. Guild 
Mess-Sergt. WilHam P. Bruce 
Harold L. Newkerk 



Bruce D. Miller 



Frank S. Green 
Harold W. Paine 



Floyd T. Allen 
George E. Bonney 
Charles Brower 
Patrick P. J. Ciale 
George S. Closs 
At wood Crook 
John Comfort 
George A. Drake 
Frederick W. Freyberg 
Gustave C. Heckroth 
Leon E. Houck 
Earl A. Hoyt 
Harrison T. Hulbert 
John B. Hume 



Sergeants 

Fred D. Lynch 
Arthur E. Ostrom 

Cook 
Francis C. Webster 

Mechanic 
William H. Edmister 

Corporals 

Arthur Gray 
Frank E. Brown 
Fred C. Houck 

Privates 

Charles A. Knowles 
Floyd W. Lee 
George H. Lee 
John P. Lake, Jr. 
Nathan E. Marks 
Donald B. Moore 
John R. Oliver 
Victor A. Reynolds 
Roy O. Schlay 
Guy A. Snyder 
Ernest A. Thomas 
Henry A. Trylone 
Edgar Tuttle 
Ward A. Wheeler 



BATTERIES B AND D, 1st F. A. 



Stationed at Fort Hill Road and Tuckahoe 



First-Lieut. Edward P. 
First-Sergt. Podewel 
Mess-Sergt. Bieral 



Southern Sector 

Smaney Supply-Sergt. Lubitz 

Supply-Sergt. Wm. C. McDonald 
Supply-Sergt. Morgan 

Acting-Supply-Sergt. Crawford 

Cook 
Lacaze 

Assistant Cook 
Brannigan 

Bugler 
Burns 



478 



H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA 



George Price 

Small 

Albert C. Coleman 

Berliner 

Fieney 



Anthony Averitt 

Robert Burkhardt 

Robert Burns 

Bowles 

Cohn 

Carlson 

Carlisle 

Thomas Deacon 

Frank Dunleavy 

Harry B. Emery 

Wilbur Finehout 

Grant 

Edward Foy 



Sergeant Mechanic 

Deacon 

Corporals 

Charles E. Smith 

Samuel Fletcher 

Theodore Lamanna 

Seiden 

John Rickard 

Acting Corporal 
Kendell 

Privates 

Monahan 

John Murray 

Howard Norton 

Shaub 

Smith 

Niel Thompson 

Tracey 

Moeller 

Frank Dorry 

Timothy 

Gilmartin 

Gallagher 

Lynch 



Northern Sector 
First-Lieut. Charles E. Cartwright Mess-Sergt. Anthony A. Lynch 

First-Sergt. Robert Leet Supply-Sergt. William Bloomer 

Supply-Sergt. Edward J. Phillips 



Thomas Cappock 
Henbach 



Marks 



Frank Aufrecht 

Birch 

Richard Clemens 

William Cronin 

Aubrey Collins 

Commons 

Jack De Veris 

Dorry 

Hymans 

William Johnson 

Henry Ketcht 

John Lersner 

Patrick Murphy 

Moran 

Meinecke 



Corporals 

Carl Kirkander 
Arthur McKeon 

John Monaco 
Sergeants 

Han ah 
Behken 
Privates 

Mannion 

Monroe 

McLaren 

McCollough 

Kelly 

McGarrity 

Wolfe 

Robert Newman 

Raymond Fuchs 

James A. Thornton 

Thomas Taylor 

Sly man 

Milton Seymour 

Frank Regan 

Thomas O'Connor 

William Wilson 



APPENDIX III 



Report Showing Posts and Disposition of Troops of the First Provisional 
ment, N. Y. G., on the New York Aqueduct 



Jl 



FIRST BATTALION 
HUDSON RIVER TO HILLVIEW RESERVOIR AS OF AUGUST 24, 1917 

SECTOR SOUTH-i 

From: East intake shaft to Hudson River. 

To: North end of Garrison River. 

Commander: Capt. John W. Johnson. 

Organization: Battery C, ist Field Artillery, N. Y. G. 

P. O. Address: Nelsonville, N. Y. 

Telephone No: None at Headquarters. Most convenient 'phone, 134 J Cold- 
spring. 

Headquarters camp, one-half mile northwest of Nelsonville, on lot commonly 
known as Gallows Field. 

Outpost No. I camp, between N. Y. C. R.R. and public road opposite B. W. S. 
building at Breakneck. 

Outpost No. 2 camp, on Aqueduct at Indian Brook crossing. 

Outpost No. 3 B. W. S. building, on Aqueduct at north end of Garrison tunnel. 

First-Lieut. Eaton commands the outposts. 

Second-Lieut. Robinson commands Headquarters Sector. 



^ Outpost No. i 

The first group of posts east of the Hudson River is made up of 
three posts day, the same number at night, covered as follows: 

Day Duty 
Present 
Post 
No. Men 

1 Pole 1885; east shaft at Hudson River; on river just north of 
Breakneck tunnel, N. Y. C. R.R.; 2 minutes from relief i 

2 Pole 1895; uptake shaft from hill, 700 feet above post No. i; 14 
minutes from relief i 

3 Pole 19B, 3 free-drainage culverts Nos. no, in, 112, between 
Breakneck tunnel and Bull Hill tunnel; three-quarters mile from 
camp 2 

Ntght Duty 

1 Pole 1885; E shaft at Hudson River; on river just north of Break- 
neck tunnel, N. Y. C. R.R.; 2 minutes from relief 2 

2 Pole 1895; uptake shaft from hill 700 feet above post No. i; 

14 minutes from relief 2 

3 Pole 19B; 3 free-drainage culverts Nos. no, in, 112, between 



482 



H-A-L-TT !— WHA-ZAA ? 



Night Duty 
Present 
Post 

No. Men 

Breakneck tunnel and Bull Hill tunnel; three-quarters mile east 

of post camp 4 

The above supervised by two non-commissioned officers; 2 men in 
camp. 

Total number of men at Outpost No. i 18 

The second group of posts comprises the Headquarters section of 
Battery C, and is covered as follows: 

Day Duty 

4 Pole 1900; free-drainage culvert 113; north chamber Foundry 
Brook siphon; 150 feet south of Bull Hill tunnel; 5 minutes from 
relief 

5 (Patrol); Pole 191 1; free-drainage culvert 114, free-drainage pipe 
culvert No. 115, free-drainage culvert No. 116, and manholes; 3 
minutes from relief 

6 Pole 1920; Foundry Brook crossing No. 117; 50 feet south of 
public highway; 6 minutes from relief 

7 Pole 1932; overhead crossing at No. 118; south chamber of Foun- 
dry Brook siphon; 200 feet public highway; 5 minutes from reHef. 

8 Pole 1948; free-drainage culvert No. 119; 600 feet south of private 
road; 5 minutes from relief 

9 Pole 1955; free-drainage culvert No. 120; 600 feet south of private 
road; 5 minutes from relief 

10 Pole 1965; free-drainage culvert No. 121; 5 minutes from relief. . . 

Night Duty 

4 Pole 1900; free-drainage culvert No. 113; north chamber Foundry 
Brook siphon; 150 feet south of Bull Hill tunnel; 5 minutes from 
relief 4 

5 (Patrol) Pole 191 1; free-drainage culvert No. 114, free-drainage 
pipe culvert No. 115, free-drainage culvert No. 116, and manholes; 

3 minutes from relief 4 

6 Pole 1920; Foundry Brook crossing No. 117; 50 feet south of public 
highway; 6 minutes from relief 4 

7 Pole 1932; overhead crossing at No. 118; south chamber Foundry 
Brook siphon; 200 feet public highway; 5 minutes from relief. ... 4 

8 Pole 1948; free drainage culvert No. 119; 600 feet south of private 
road; 6 minutes from relief 4 

9 Pole 1965; free-drainage culvert No. 120; 600 feet south of private 
road ; 5 minutes from relief 4 

10 Pole 1965; free-drainage culvert No. 121; 5 minutes from relief. . . 4 

Total number on guard, Headquarters Section 35 

Supervised by 3 non-coms 3 

On duty in camp, cooks, etc S 

Non-coms. 3 



Total number men Headquarters Section 40 

Non-coms. 6 



APPENDIX III 483 

Outpost No. ii 

Day Duty 
Present 
Post 
No. Men 

11 Pole 1990; free drainage culvert No. 122; 100 feet south of McKeel 
tunnel; 15 minutes from relief. I 

12 Pole 2015; free-drainage culvert No. 123; 275 feet south of Indian 
Brook road; north chamber Indian Brook siphon; 75 feet north of 
Indian Brook road; 2 minutes from relief I 

13 Pole 2026; Indian Brook crossing No. 124; 50 feet south of Indian 
Brook road; south chamber Indian Brook siphon; 150 feet south 

of crossing; 2 minutes from relief I 

Supervised by one non-commissioned officer. 

Night Duty 

11 Pole 1990; free-drainage culvert No. 122; 100 feet south of McKeel 
tunnel; 15 minutes from relief 4 

12 Pole 2015; free-drainage culvert No. 123; 275 feet north of Indian 
Brook road; 2 minutes from relief; north chamber Indian Brook 
siphon; 75 feet north of Indian Brook road; 2 minutes from relief 4 

13 Pole 2026; Indian Brook crossing No. 124; 50 feet south of Indian 
Brook road; south chamber Indian Brook siphon; 150 feet south of 

crossing; 2 minutes from relief 4 

Supervised by one non-commissioned officer. 

Total on guard for day and night 15 

Non-coms 2 

Cook I 

Total at Outpost 



Outpost No. 3 

Comprising 3 day and 3 night posts, the latter capable of sub- 
division into 5 night posts. 

Day Duty 

14 Poles 2033-2043; free-drainage culvert No. 125; 75 feet south of 
public road; No. 126, 200 feet south of first; 3 minutes from relief. i 

15 Pole 2054; free-drainage culvert No. 127; 15 minutes from relief. . i 

16 Poles 2085-2089; free-drainage culvert No. 128; 100 feet north of 
public road crossing; culvert No. 129; 20 feet north of public road 

crossing; 3 minutes from relief i 

Supervised by non-commissioned officer 

Night Duty 

14 Patrol Poles 2033-2043; 2 free-drainage culverts, Nos. 125, 126; 75 
feet south of public road; 2nd 200 feet south of ist; 15 minutes from 
relief , , 4 



484 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

Night Duty 
Present 
Post 
No. Men 

15 Pole 2054; free-drainage culvert No. 127; 15 minutes from relief 4 

16 Patrol Poles 2085-2089; 2 free-drainage culverts, Nos. 128, 129; 
100 feet north of public road crossing; culvert No. 129, about 20 feet 

north of public road crossing; 3 minutes from relief 4 

Supervised by i non-commissioned ofl&cer. 

On duty in camp (cook) i 

Non-coms v 2 

Total number of men at Outpost No. 3 18 



Men N.C.O. 

Total number of men at Outpost No. i 16 2 

" " " " " Headquarters Camp 40 6 

" "" Outpost No. 2 16 2 

" " " Outpost No. 3 16 2 

Total number of men in Battery C 88 12 



SECTOR SOUTH-2 

From: South end of Garrison tunnel. 
To: South Peekskill siphon chamber. 
Commander: Captain John J. Roche. 
Organization: Sixty-ninth Depot Unit. 
P. O. Address: Peekskill, N. Y. 
Telephone No: 955 Peekskill. 

Headquarters, Cortlandtville, N. Y., at Peekskill Hollow Road; B.W. S. building; | 

3-story frame house, partly occupied by city employees; (Peekskill Division 
House), Peekskill Hollow road. ij 

Day Duty . ,. 

Post 

No. Men 

8 Patrol Poles 2095-2126; i manhole and i open drain from south end 
of Garrison tunnel to north siphon chamber; 25 minutes from relief i 

18 7 Poles 2127-2134; north siphon chamber; 20 minutes from relief i 

19 6 Poles 2135-2149; south siphon chamber; i blow-off chamber, 2 man- 

holes covered by observation; from right of way No. 555 to north 
end of Cat Hill tunnel; 15 minutes from relief i 

20 5 Patrol Poles 2173-2186; free-draining culvert; from south end of 

Cat Hill tunnel between right of way No. 563; 35 minutes from 
relief i 

21 4 Poles 2 1 87-2 1 97; 2 free-draining culverts; between right of way No. 

564 and north siphon chamber; 30 minutes from relief i 

22 3 Poles 2198-2207; north siphon chamber, Cat Hill; 30 minutes from 

relief; 15 by auto , , , , , , 



APPENDIX III 48s 

Day Duty 
Post 
No. Men 

23 2 Patrol Poles 2208-2209; 4 manholes and blow-ofF chamber at Peek- 

skill Creek; from Peekskill Hollow road to south siphon chamber; 
2 minutes from relief i 

24 I Patrol Poles 2230-2258; 2 culverts, i air-valve and blow-out 

chamber near Peekskill Division house and 4 manholes; from 
Peekskill Hollow road to south siphon chamber; i minute from 
relief I 



Night Duty {Outposts) 

17 Patrol Poles 2095-2109; i manhole and open drain; from south 
end of Garrison tunnel to right of way No. 546; 25 minutes from 
relief 2 

18 Patrol Poles 2110-2124; right of way No. 546 to north siphon covers 
line for 1800 feet; 20 minutes from relief 2 

19 Poles 2125-2127; north end of siphon chamber; north siphon cham- 
ber; 20 minutes from relief 2 

20 Poles 2 1 28-2 1 34; south side of north siphon chamber; north siphon 
chamber; 20 minutes from relief 2 

21 Patrol Poles 2135-2147; i manhole; i blow-ofF chamber from right 

of way No. 555 to right of way No. 556; 15 minutes from relief. . . 2 

22 Poles 2148-2149; south siphon chamber; i manhole covered 
by observation; 50 feet north of north end of Cat Hill tunnel; 15 
minutes from relief. . : 2 



Night Duty {Line Posts) 

23 From 2173-2177; I free-draining culvert and manhole; 200 feet south 

of Cat Hill tunnel; 35 minutes from relief 2 

24 From 2178-2186; I free-draining culvert 380 feet north of right of 
way No. 563; 35 minutes from relief; 15 by auto 2 

25 Poles 2187-2196; I free-draining culvert between right of way No. 
555 and No. 554; 30 minutes from relief; 15 by auto 2 

26 Poles 2192-2197; I free-draining culvert about 400 feet from north 
siphon chamber; 30 minutes from relief; 15 by auto 2 

27 Poles 2198-2199; north side of north siphon chamber, Cat Hill; 

30 minutes from relief; 15 by auto 2 

28 Poles 2200-2207; south side of north siphon chamber, Cat Hill; 

30 minutes from relief 2 

29 Patrol Poles 2208-2219; 2 manholes; i blow-ofF chamber at Peek- 
skill Creek; from Peekskill Creek to top of cut; 5 minutes from relief 2 

30 Patrol Poles 2220-2229; 2 manholes from top of cut to Peekskill 
Hollow road; 2 minutes from relief 2 

31 Patrol Poles 2230-2239; i culvert; i airhole; i manhole; i blow- 
ofF chamber; from Peekskill Hollow road to right of way No. 576; 

I minute from relief 2 

32 Patrol Poles 2239-2258; from south siphon chamber to right of way 

No. 577; 2 minutes from relief 2 

Three non-commissioned officers supervise the line of posts. 

One non-commissioned officer supervises the outposts. 



486 



H-A-L-TT !— WHA-ZAA ? 



RECAPITULATION 

Total number of non-coms, and men on duty per 24 hours 44 

Total number of non-coms, and men in camp for other duty 5 

Absent without leave 2 

Total number of non-coms, and men 51 

Ofl&cers 2 



Total 



S3 



SECTOR SOUTH-3 
From: South Peekskill siphon. 
To: North chamber Hunter's Brook siphon. 
Commander: Captain John M. Thompson. 
Organization: Fourth Co. 9th Coast Artillery. 
P. O. Address: Peekskill, N. Y. 
Telephone No: 956 Peekskill. 

Headquarters, Todd Farm, Compound road and Locust Avenue. B. W. S. build- 
ing, i; private building, i; loaned by Mr. Harding (outpost). 



Day Duty {Line Post) 



25 
26 



27 



28 



29 



30 



31 



32 



33 



34 



35 



36 



Present 

Post 

No. 

I 



II 



12 



Men 



Poles 2258-2266; siphon house; i culvert No. 139; i manhole; 

roadway 200 yards south of siphon; 25 minutes from relief 

Poles 2274-2277; culvert No. 140; manhole No. 85; 40 yards south 

of roadway and shack; 20 minutes from relief 

Poles 2284-2288; culverts Nos. 141, 142; 60 yards from Hotel 

Owen on hillside; 15 minutes from relief 

Poles 2323-2325; culvert No. 143; 150 yards north of school-house 

on roadway; 5 minutes from relief 

Poles 2330-2332; 2 culverts, Nos. 144, 145; 300 yards south of 

Todd Farm; 2 minutes from reHef 

Poles 2337-2339; culvert No. 146; manhole No. 86; 150 yards south 

of shack; 5 minutes from relief 

Poles 2353-2360; I culvert. No. 147; 450 feet south of crossway 
leading from Compound road 100 feet southwest of two-story 

frame building; 10 minutes from relief 

Poles 2366-2374; culvert No. 148; 300 feet northwest of red barn; 
culvert No. 149 and manhole 200 yards west of old stone-crusher; 

13 minutes from relief 

Poles 2383-2393; culvert No. 150; 1,000 yards east of two-story 
frame house on Compound road; culvert No. 151 runs under 
about 10 feet south of pole 2393, about 300 yards southeast of 

two-story slate-colored building; 18 minutes from relief 

Pole 2400; culvert No. 152; under road to farm on western end 
of culvert is 10 feet south of slate-colored barn; 22 minutes from 

relief 

Poles 2407-2419; culvert No, 152; 150 yards east of Compound 
road; culvert No. 154, 1000 yards east of 2 red barns on cross- 
road; 24 minutes from relief 

Pole 2430; culvert No. 155; 24 yards south of tel. pole 2430; 

28 minutes from relief 

Supervised by i sergeant and 2 corporals. 



APPENDIX III 487 

Day Duty {Outposts) 
Also Night Duty 
Present 
Post 

No. Men 

37 I No tel. pole; Hunter's Brook siphon house; 2 manholes, Nos. 

89, 90, and I culvert; located state road at crossing of county 
road; white farm-house and barn; 96 minutes from headquarters, 

and I siphon chamber is 3 minutes from relief 6 

Supervised by i sergeant. 

33 I Pole 2258; siphon house; 25 minutes from relief 2 

34 lA Pole 2266; culvert and manhole; roadway 200 yards south of 

siphon; 25 minutes from relief i 

35 2 Poles 2274-2277; culvert No. 140; manhole No. 85; 40 yards 

south of roadway and shack; 20 minutes from relief i 

36 3 Poles 2284-2288; culvert No. 141; 15 minutes from relief i 

37 4 Poles 2284-2288; culvert No. 142; 15 minutes from relief i 

38 5 Poles 2323-2325; culvert No. 143; 150 yards north of school- 

house on roadway; 5 minutes from relief I 

39 6 Poles 2330-2332; culvert No. 144; 300 yards south of Todd Farm; 

2 minutes from relief I 

40 7 Poles 2330-2332; culvert No. 145; 300 yards south of Todd Farm; 

2 minutes from relief. I 

41 8 Poles 2337-2339; culvert No. 146; manhole No. 86; 150 yards 

south of shack; 5 minutes from relief i 

42 9 Poles 2353-2360; culvert No. 147; 450 feet south of crossway lead- 

ing from Compound road; 10 minutes from relief i 

43 10 Poles 2366-2374; culverts Nos. 147-149; No. 148 is 300 feet north of 

red frame barn; No. 149 is 200 yards west of old stone crusher; 

13 minutes from relief i 

44 II Poles 2383-2393; culvert No. 150; 1000 yards east of two-story 

frame house on Compound road; culvert No. 151 runs under 
camp about 10 feet south of pole 2393, about 300 yards southeast 
of two-story frame slate-colored building i 

45 12 Pole 2400; culvert No. 152; under road to farm on west; western 

end of culvert is 10 feet south of slate-colored barn; 22 minutes 
from relief I 

46 12A Poles 2407-2419; culvert No. 153, 150 yards east of Cbmpound 

road; 24 minutes from relief i 

47 13 Poles 2407-2419; culvert No. 154, 100 yards east of red barn on 

cross road; 24 minutes from relief i 

48 14 Pole 2430; culvert No. 155; 24 yards south of pole 2430; 28 

minutes from relief i 

These posts are supervised by i sergeant and 2 corporals. 

RECAPITULATION 

Total non-coms, and men on duty for 24 hours 42 

Total non-coms, and men in camp for other duty 18 

Total non-coms, and men 60 

Officers 3 

Total 63 



488 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

SECTOR SOUTH-4 

From: Scribner's Farm. 

To: North shore of Croton Lake. 

Commander: Captain Arthur E. Connor. 

Organization: Co. F, ist Regiment, N. Y. G. 

P. O. Address: Scribner's Farm, Yorktown Heights, N. Y., Westchester County. 

Telephone No.: Yorktown, 12-F-11. 

Headquarters: Scribner's Farm, Yorktown Heights. 

B. W. S. building. Engineer's house. 

Camp near Headquarters at Scribner's Farm. 

Day Duty {Line Posts) 
Present 
Post 

No. Men 

42 I Pole 2593; downtake shaft to Croton Lake; pressure siphon; 

north shore of Croton Lake; 100 feet north of north lake road . . 3 
This outpost is on duty for 24 hours. 
Supervised by i corporal. 
Men cook for themselves. 

Night Duty {Line Posts) 

49 I Poles 2515-2526; culvert No. 157; manhole No. 93; 270 yards 

north of Headquarters; 3 minutes from relief 2 

50 2 Pole 2544; culvert No. 158; manhole No. 94; 270 yards south 

of Headquarters; 3 minutes from relief 2 

51 3 Pole 2551; culvert No. 159; 200 yards north of Croton Lake and 

Yorktown Heights road; yJ/2 minutes from relief 2 

Above posts supervised by 2 sergeants and 3 corporals. 

RECAPITULATION 

Number of men and non-coms, on duty for 24 hours 25 

On duty in camp: i first sergeant, i supply sergeant, i mess 
sergeant, i cook, i mechanic, 2 kitchen police, i clerk, 2 

special duty, 5 sick and on pass 15 

Ofl5cers .' i 

Total 41 

SECTOR SOUTH-s 

From: South siphon Croton Lake. 

To: Washburn Farm-house — base at north side Sherrill Hill. 

Commander: Captain Ernest T. Van Zandt. 

Organization: Co. B, 12th Infantry, N. Y. G. 

P. O. Address: Millwood, N. Y. 

Telephone: Chappaqua, 98 R. 

Southern limit, 'phone BrIarclifF 135-F-14. 
Headquarters: Camp Dyer. 

B. W. S. buildings, Camp Bolton. 



APPENDIX III 489 

Present 
Post 
No. Men 

43 Croton Dam. Outpost. This covers two gates open during the 
day and closed at night. Each gate guarded during the day by 
one man; at night one additional post established in center of 
dam. Local subsistence. 

Day guard 2 

Night guard — two shifts 6 

2 non-coms, i cook, i supernumerary attached to this outpost 44 

44 Outpost. Uptake for New Croton Aqueduct. Five points are 
covered by this outpost screen chamber for 24 hours 3 

Yellow house and boat-hole 24 hours . 3 

Shaft 24 hours 2 

Culvert 24 hours 3 

Cut and cover 24 hours 2 

One nom-com.; i cook. Local subsistence 2 

Day Posts 

45 Manhole south of Croton tunnel, No. 2696; 12 minutes from 
relief i 

46 Manhole; Ossining to Kitchawan Station; poles Nos. 2717-2719; 

3 minutes from relief I 

47 Culvert and cut and cover, tel. poles Nos. 2729-2730; 25 minutes 
from relief i 

48 Culvert and manhole, tel. poles Nos. 2738-2739; 25 minutes 
from relief i 

49 Culvert; tel. poles Nos. 2741-2742; 22 minutes from relief i 

50 Culvert; tel. poles Nos. 2744-2745; 20 minutes from relief i 

51 Culvert; tel. pole No. 2754; 12 minutes from relief i 

52 Culvert and manhole; 5 minutes from relief I 

53 Culvert No. 2772; 2 minutes from relief I 

One non-commissioned officer supervising. I 



Total . 



Night Posts 

52 Manhole; tel. poles Nos. 2692-2696; 12 minutes from relief. ... 2 

53 Cut and cover; Nos. 2716-2706; 2 minutes from relief 2 

54 Manhole; tel. poles Nos. 2717-2719; 3 minutes from relief 2 

55 Cut and cover; Nos. 2728-2721; 40 minutes from relief 2 

56 Manhole, culvert; tel. poles Nos. 2729-2730; 35 minutes from 
relief 2 

57 Cut and cover; poles Nos. 2727-2731; 30 minutes from relief ... . 2 

58 Culvert and manhole; poles Nos. 2738-2739; 25 minutes from 
relief 2 

59 Culvert; poles Nos. 2741-2742; 22 minutes from relief 2 

60 Culvert; poles Nos. 2744-2745; 20 minutes from relief 2 

61 Cut and cover; poles Nos. 2753-2746; 17 minutes from relief 2 

62 Culvert; tel. pole No. 2754; 12 minutes from relief 2 



490 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

Night Posts 
Present 
Post 
No. Men 

63 Cut and cover; tel. poles Nos. 2758-2763; 10 minutes from relief 2 

64 Culvert and manhole; tel. pole No. 2765; 5 minutes from relief. 2 

65 Culvert; tel. pole No. 2772; 2 minutes from relief 2 

66 Commissary Depot — Millwood, N. Y. — i minute from relief 2 

Supervised by i non-commissioned officer i 

Total 31 

Southern Sector running south from Headquarters in Millwood. 

Day Posts 

54 Manhole in Millwood and culvert; tel. poles Nos. 2782-2783; 15 
minutes from relief I 

55 Two manholes and boat-hole; railroad crossing siphon; tel. 
poles Nos. 3011-2791; 5 minutes from relief i 

56 Boat hole south of siphon; te^. poles Nos. 2796-2797; 2 minutes 
from relief I 

57 Manhole and culvert; tel. poles Nos. 2810-281 1; 6 minutes from 
relief i 

58 Culvert; tel. poles Nos. 2819-2820; 9 minutes from relief i 

59 Manhole; tel. pole No. 2827; 14 minutes from relief i 

One non-com. supervising i 

Total 7 

Night Posts 

67 Tel. poles Nos. 2782-2783; manhole and culvert; 15 minutes from 
relief 2 

68 Tel. poles Nos. 2786-2787; culvert; 10 minutes from relief 2 

69 Tel. pole No. 2791; manhole and boat-hole; railroad crossing; 5 

• minutes from relief 2 

70 Tel. pole No. 301 1 ; manhole south of railroad crossing; 2 minutes 
from relief 2 

71 Tel. poles Nos. 2796-2797; boat-hole south of siphon; 2 minutes 
from relief 2 

72 Tel. poles Nos. 2796-28P9; boat-holes, cut and cover; 2 minutes 
from relief 2 

73 Tel. poles. Nos. 2810-281 1 ; manhole and culvert; 8 minutes from 
relief 2 

74 Tel. poles Nos. 2809-2819; culvert; 9 minutes from relief 2 

75 Tel. poles Nos. 2821-2826; cut and cover; 10 minutes from reHef 2 

76 Tel. poles Nos. 2826-2827; manhole; 14 minutes from relief 2 

One non-com. supervising i 

Total 21 

60 Outpost at Halsted's Farm; shaft No. i; i minute from relief; in 

24 hours 3 

One non-com.; i cook; i super 3 

Total 6 

Local subsistence. 



APPENDIX III 491 

Night Posts 
Present 
Post 
No. Men 

61 Outpost at Stills Farm; shaft No. 2; old Croton Dam; i minute 
from relief; in 24 hours 3 

One non-com.; i cook; i super 3 

Total 6 

Local subsistence. 

62 Outpost south of road; cut and cover; in 24 hours 9 

One non-com. ; i cook 2 

Total II 

Local subsistence. 

63 Outpost, Pocantico blow-out; in 24 hours 3 

One non-com I 

Total 4 

RECAPITULATION 

Number of non-coms, and men on guard in 24 hours 123 

In camp 23 

On leave 12 

Ofiicers 3 

Total 161 

SECTOR SOUTH-6 

From: Harlem R.R. siphon at Sarles Hill. 

To: Kensico influent. 

Commander: Captain J. R. Stewart. 

Organization: Co. C, 7th Infantry, N. Y. G. 

P. 0. Address: East Pleasantville, N. Y. 

Telephone No.: Pleasantville, 217. 

B. W. S. buildings, i ; Bedford road near Broadway. 

Camp on Aqueduct 200 yards south of B. W. S. building. 

Day and Night Duty {Outposts) 
Present 
Post 
No. Men 

64 7 and 8 Pole No. 2832; high-power poles Nos. 236 and 237; Harlem 

R.R. siphon at side of railroad tracks between siphon houses; 

7, 2 minutes from relief; 8, 3 minutes from relief 8 

Supervised by non-coms 3 

Cooks on detail i 

Day Duty {Line Posts) 

6s S Pole No- 2862; high-power pole No. 228; coagulating chamber; 

on Broadway east of Pleasantville, 200 yards south of Broadway i 
o2 



492 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

Day Duty {Line Posts) 
Present 
Post 
No. Men 

66 4 Pole No. 2874; high-power pole No. 224; Pleasantville meter; 

boat-hole No. 117; manhole No. 118; Pleasantville meter No. 119; 
free-drainage culvert, No. 184; manhole No. 120; boat-hole No. 121; 
470 feet south of Pleasantville meter; i minute from relief i 

67 3 Pole No. 2583; high-power pole No. 221; patrol covering west 

end of tunnel; free-draining culvert; 100 feet from water supply 

hospital; one-half minute from relief I 

Supervised by non-coms 3 



Day and Night (Outposts) 

68 I Pole, none; influent chamber head of Kensico Dam; i minute 

from relief 4 

Non-coms 3 

Cooks I 

Independent cooking establishment. 



Night Duty (Line Posts) 

77 5 Pole No. 2862; high-power pole No. 228; coagulating chamber; 

on Broadway east of Pleasantville, 200 yards south of Broadway 3 

78 4 Pole No. 2874; high-power pole No. 224; P'easantviUe meter; 

boat-hole No. 117; manhole No. 118; Pleasantville meter No. 
119; free-draining culvert No. 184; manhole No. 120; boat-hole 
No. 121; 470 feet south of Pleasantville meter; i minute from 
relief 3 

79 3 Pole No. 2883; high-power pole No. 221; patrol covering north 

end of tunnel; free-draining culvert; 100 feet from water-supply 

hospital; one-half minute from relief 3 

Supervised by non-coms 3 

One first sergeant; i mess sergeant; i supply sergeant; 2 patrolling 
sergeants, attached to Headquarters; 2 cooks; i. kitchen police; 
1 clerk; i sanitary detail; 3 supernumeraries; i corporal; on 
special duty in camp. 



RECAPITULATION 

Number privates and non-coms, on guard per 24 hours 36 

Number on duty at Headquarters 14 

Cooks at outposts 2 

Absen| with leave 2 

Total, privates and non-coms 54 

Officers 3 

Total number in command 57 



APPENDIX III 493 

SECTOR SOUTH-7 

From: Upper effluent chamber, Kensico Dam. 

To: Siphon house in Pleasantville. 

Commander: Captain A. T. Surick. 

Organization: Battery B, V. C. A. 

P. 0. Address: Valhalla, N. Y. 

Telephone No.: 2243, White Plains. 

Headquarters at Valhalla, N. Y., western end of Kensico Dam. 

Camp, western end of Kensico Dam. 

Day and Night Duty {Outposts) 

Each of the following is a separate outpost. 
Subsistence furnished by auto 48 hours ahead. 

Present 
Post 
No. Men 

69 6 Pole No. 3065; effluent chamber; 2 minutes from relief 3 

Supervised by non-coms 3 

70 7 Pole No. 3075; lower effluent; aeration station under construc- 

tion; south of effluent station on lake V.C.A. 2 

9th C.A.C. 2 

71 8 Pole No. 3083; chlorination station; on Lake road; 3 minutes 

from relief. V.C.A. 2 

9th C.A.C. I 

72 9 Pole No. 4143; Kensico siphon; close to Putnam R.R.; one-third 

to one-half mile west on Kensico road; i minute from relief. 4 
Supplied by auto from Headquarters. 

73 10 Pole No. 3164; south chamber siphon of Kensico Dam; 500 

yards north of Kensico Cemetery tunnel; i minute from relief. . 4 
Supplied by auto; independent cooking. 

74 II Pole No. 3177; entrance of Kensico Cemetery tunnel; in natural 

gully at entrance of tunnel; i mile north of outer post of Elmsford 
detachment; i minute from relief 4 

Day Duty {Line Posts) 

75 I Pole none; intersection of road and dam at Headquarters 2 

76 3 Pole none; east approach of dam; Lake drive road under con- 

struction; not approachable by auto; i minute from relief 2 

77 5 Pole none; base of dam 2 

' Night Duty {Line Posts) 

86 I Pole none; west approach to dam : 2 

81 2 Pole none; top center of dam; 5 minutes from relief 3 

82 3 No pole; east approach to dam; road under construction; im- 

possible for auto to approach 2 

83 4 Lower center of dam . .'. % 

Above post supervised by 3 non-coms. 



494 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

RECAPITULATION 

Number of men and non-coms, on guard in 24 hours 43 

In camp for other duty 11 

Total number of men and non-coms 54 

OflScers 2 

Total 56 

SECTOR SOUTH^S 

From: Kensico Cemetery tunnel. 
To: Elmsford south siphon chamber. 
Commander: Lieut. J. M. Perry. 
Organization: Co. B, V. C. A. 
P. O. Address: Elmsford, N. Y. 
Telephone No.: Elmsford, 873. 
Headquarters: Elmsford, N. Y. 
B. W. S. buildings. 

Day and Night Duty {Outposts) 

79 Tel. pole No. 3230; manhole and filter chamber south of lower cross- 
road 3 

80 Tel. poles Nos. 3240-3250; overflow culverts and manhole south 
limit; pole No. 3259 6 

81 Tel. poles Nos. 3260-3265; 2 culverts; manhole; 750 feet apart; 185 
feet north of pole No. 3 269 3 

82 Tel. pole No. 3278; culvert; 280 feet north of country road adjacent 

to two dwellings, Fox estate 3 

83 Tel. poles Nos. 3284-3288A; 2 culverts and manhole; 750 feet 
apart; crossing of country road 6 

84 Tel. pole No. 3298; culvert; 510 feet north of north siphon chamber; 
400 feet south of Millwood road 3 

85 Tel. pole No. 3304; siphon chamber at north Elmsford siphon 
chamber 3 

86 Tel. poles Nos. 3307-3312; culvert; 3 manholes; limit of patrol 
150 feet White Plains and Tarrytown road 3 

87 Tel. pole No. 3316; south Elmsford siphon chamber 3 

RECAPITULATION 

Supervised by 2 sergeants. 

Number of privates and non-coms, for 24 hours 35 

Six privates, i mess sergeant, x first sergeant on duty in camp 8 

Total privates and non-coms 43 

Officers I 

Total 44 

Sergeants cover posts i to 5 and 6 to 9; 9 men and i corporal from 
Coast Artillery; balance from V. C. A. 



APPENDIX III 495 

SECTOR SOUTH-9 

From: Pole No. 3343, north of Dobbs Ferry road. 

To: New York City line. 

Commander: Captain Louis J. Praeger. 

Organization: V. C. A. 

P. O. Address: White Plains, N. Y., R. F. D. 

Telephone: White Plains, 1882. 

Headquarters: Dobbs Ferry and Aqueduct, pole No. 3365. 

B. W. S. buildings (4 used), i at Dobbs Ferry and Aqueduct; i at Jackson Ave. 
and Aqueduct, Scarsdale; i at Tuckahoe road and Aqueduct, Tuckahoe; i at 
Hillview Reservoir. 

Upper Section 
Headquarters, Dobbs Ferry and Aqueduct 

Day Duty 

Present 
Post 
No. Men 

88 I Poles Nos. 3343-3360; 2 culverts; 2 manholes; from tunnel 

north of pole No. 3343 to tunnel at No. 3363 north of Dobbs 
Ferry road; \}i minutes from relief i 

89 2 Poles Nos. 3376-3408; 2 culverts; 2 manholes; from tunnel at 

pole No. 3363 to 200 feet above farm road at pole No. 341 1; 5 
minutes from relief I 

90 3 Poles Nos. 3408-3448; 5 culverts, 2 manholes; from 200 feet above 

farm road at pole No. 341 1 to 300 feet below culvert at No. 3445; 
5 minutes from relief i 

91 4 Poles Nos. 3448-3463; 2 culverts; from 300 feet below culvert at 

No. 3445 to culvert at No. 3463; 4 minutes from relief i 

92 5 Poles 3463-3493; 4 culverts; from culvert at No. 3463 to 400 

feet below road at No. 3490; 4 minutes from relief I 

Night Duty 

84 I Poles Nos. 3343-3360; 2 culverts; 2 manholes; from tunnel 

north of pole No. 3343 to tunnel at No. 3363 north of Dobbs 
Ferry Road; \}4 minutes from relief 4 

85 2 Poles 3376-3408; 2 culverts; 2 manholes; from tunnel at pole 

No. 3363 to 200 feet above farm road at pole No. 341 1; S minutes 
from relief 4 

86 3 Poles Nos. 3408-3448; 5 culverts; 2 manholes; extreme northerly 

culvert near No. 3408; fixed post at night, and culvert at No. 3448 
fixed post at night; patrol between two shifts 6 

87 4 Poles Nos. 3448-3463; 2 culverts; from 300 feet south of culvert 

at No. 3445 to culvert at No. 3463; 4 minutes from relief 4 

88 5 Poles Nos. 3463-3494; 4 culverts; from culvert No. 3463 to cul- 

vert below road at No. 3490; 4 minutes from relief 4 

These posts are supervised during the 24 hours by 7 non-com- 
missioned officers. 



496 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

Middle Section 

Day Duty 
Present 
Post 

No. Men 

Headquarters Lieut. Taft, at siphon house at pole No. 3543. 

93 4 and 5 Poles Nos. 3494-3532; 2 culverts; 2 boat-holes; i manhole; 

from 300 feet above Piatt Avenue to 300 feet below farm road; 
7 minutes from relief i 

94 3 Poles Nos. 3502-3533; 2 culverts; i manhole; i siphon house; 5 

minutes from relief i 

95 2 Poles Nos. 3546-3553; 2 culverts; i manhole; i siphon house 

(observation covers vulnerable points other than siphon house 

on this post) ; 5 minutes from relief 2 

96 I Poles Nos. 3553-3585; 2 culverts; 2 manholes; i meter house; 

from culvert at No. 3553 to 100 feet below culvert at No. 3584; 
3 minutes from relief i 

Night Duty 

89 4 and 5 Poles Nos. 3493-3532; 2 culverts; 2 boat-holes; i man- 

hole; 300 feet above Piatt Avenue to 50 feet below farm road; 

7 minutes from relief 4 

90 3 Poles Nos. 3502-3533; 2 culverts; i manhole; i siphon house; 

from 50 feet below farm-house at No. 3503 to siphon house at 
No. 3533 ; 5 minutes from relief 4 

91 2 Poles Nos. 3546-3553; 2 culverts; i manhole; i siphon house; 

5 minutes from relief 4 

92 I Poles Nos. 3553-3585; 2 culverts; 2 manholes; i meter house; 

3 minutes from relief 3 

These posts are supervised during 24 hours by 5 non-com- 
missioned officers. 

Note: From this point southward the Aqueduct and its vulner- 
able points are covered by outposts; at present greatly under- 
manned, and because of that fact necessarily indicated for day and 
night duty at once; for instance, it is apparent that to show in any 
intelligent fashion the method by which six men can patrol the 
outlet and inlet houses at Hillview together with a, patrol of i>^ 
miles around the reservoir during 24 hours, would require several 
paragraphs of justification; the fact remains that it is being done. 
The outpost at Ardsley is properly a part of the middle section, 
covering as follows: 

97 6 Two boat-holes at gate house; i overflow; Sawmill River road 

near Ashford Avenue; 3 minutes from relief; i fixed post at gate 
house and overflow, day and night 4 

98 5 Outpost poles Nos. 3585-3620; 2 culverts; 3 manholes; meter 

house; 4 fixed posts; covered during 24 hours by 6 men, i non- 
com., I cook (both non-coms, and cook do guard duty; local 
subsistence) 

99 4 Outpost poles Nos. 3620-3657; 2 culverts; i siphon house; 4 man- 

holes; from 100 feet below farm road at No. 3619 to Tuckahoe 

road; 5 minutes from relief. 5 

Non-com i 



APPENDIX III 497 

Night Duty 
Present 
Post 
No. Men 

Cook I 

Headquarters 
lOO Post at junction Tuckahoe road and Aqueduct pole No. 3637; 3 
men guard the stores at this point; with one of them also acting 
as orderly, these three men covering the period of 24 hours, 
loi 3 Poles Nos, 3665-3681; I culvert; 6 manholes; i gate house; i 
blowout; I drain cover; from Tuckahoe road to culvert at No. 
3682; all subsist at Headquarters 9 

102 2 Outpost at Dunwoodie; i chlorinating plant and gate house 4 

Non-com i 

Cook I 

103 I Outlet and inlet houses at Hillview Reservoir patrol of I >^ miles. 6 

Non-coms 2 

Cook I 

Because of the frequent change of the personnel of the V. C. A., it is impossible 
to give a summary or recapitulation at this point showing the number in camp 
not on guard duty. The above figures indicate the number on actual guard 
duty for 24 hours, in the case of outposts, with the duty subdivided into day and 
night, where the operation of the posts permits. 



SECOND BATTALION 

SECTOR NORTH-i 

From: South Tongore siphon chamber. 

To: Tongore road. 

Commander: Captain Alfred Broadbent. 

Organization: Cos. A and B, ist Infantry. 

Post Office: Atwood, N. Y. 

Telephone Nos.: Atwood. New Paltz 27 F 21. 

Davis Corners, 27 F 4. ^ 

Headquarters: B. W. S. buildings. 

Davis Corners Section 
Post No. 

4 bicycle patrols in daytime. 

Day Posts 

1 South Tongore siphon to pole No. 105 i manhole 

3 culverts at tel. poles Nos. 92, 100 and 105. 

3 minutes from relief; cut and cover. 

2 3 culverts at poles Nos. 1 14, 120 and 125 i ** 

2 minutes from relief; cut and cover. 

3 3 culverts at poles Nos. 126, 135 and 138. i ** 

I niinute from relief; cut and cover. 



498 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

Day Posts 
Post No. 

4 3 culverts at poles Nos. 145, 149 and 153; 5 minutes from 

relief I manhole 

Supervised by 2 non-coms, on bicycles 2 " 

Cut and cover. 

Night Posts 

At night 12 fixed posts, as follows, 2 shifts each: 
Post No. Men 

1 Culvert at pole No. 92 2 

2 " " 100 2 

3 " " los 2 

4 " " 114 2 

5 « " 120 2 

6 " *' I2S 2 

7 " " 126 2 

8 " " 135 2 

9 " '* 138 2 

10 " " 145 2 

11 " " 149 2 

12 " " 153 2 

Supervised by 4 non-coms 4 

Number of non-coms, on guard duty 6 

Number of non-coms, in camp 16 

One commissioned officer 1 

Total 51 

COMPANIES A AND B CONSOLIDATED 

• Atwood Section 

Day Posts 

From Tongore road to the Peak. 
Four walking patrols during the day. 

In this sector the present system of day duty is 4 a.m.. to 12 noon 
and 12 noon to 8 p.m. 
Post No. Men 

5 Poles Nos. 157 to 190; 4 culverts at poles Nos. 170, 175, 184 and 188; 

7 to 17 minutes from relief; cut and cover 2 

6 Tel. poles Nos. 190 to 227; 6 culverts at poles Nos. 198, 207, 215, 
220, 225 and 228; 7 to 13 minutes from relief; cut and cover 2 

7 Tel. poles Nos. 227 to 266; 4 culverts at poles Nos. 237, 252, 261, and 
266; 15 to 30 minutes from relief; cut and cover 2 

8 Tel. poles Nos. 266 to 283 ; Peak gaging chamber, 2 culverts, Nos. 276 
and 283; I downtake Rondout pressure tunnel; 38 to 39 minutes 

from relief; cut and cover 2 

Supervised by 4 non-coms, on bicycles 4 

12 



APPENDIX III 



499 



Night Posts {Sixteen Fixed Posts) 

At this section — night duty covers from 8 p.m. to 4 a.m. This will 
be adjusted to conform with the Davis Corners Section, and will then 
require 16 more men. 

2 Shifts Each 
Post No. Men 

13 Culvert at pole No. 170; cut and cover. 

14 " " 175 

15 " " 184 

16 " " 188 

17 " •* 198 

18 " " 207 

19 " " 215 

20 " " 220 

21 " " 225 

22 " " 237 

23 " " 228 

24 " " 252 

25 " " 261 

26 " " 266 

27 Peak and gaging chamber 

28 Culvert No. 276; cut and cover. . 

29 283 

30 Downtake Rondout pressure tunnel. 
Supervised by 4 non-coms 4 22 

Number of non-coms, and men on guard duty 34 

In camp 9 



Officers . 



43 
2 



Total 45 

Davis Corners Section, officers and men 51 

Atwood Section, officers and men 45 



Total . 



96 



SECTOR NORTH-2 
From: Peak tunnel. 
To: Bonticou tunnel. 
Commander: Captain J. Roy Wilbur. 
Organization: Co. H, ist Infantry. 
Post Office: High Falls. 
Telephone No.: High Falls 22. 
Headquarters: B. W. S. buildings at the Peak. 



Post No. 



Day Duty 

4 patrols on bicycles. 

Tel. poles Nos. 317-324; culvert No. 317; manhole No. 318; culverts 



Soo 



H-A-L-TT !— WHA-ZAA ? 



Day Duty 
Post No. Men 

324 to shaft house at pole No. 325; 5 minutes from relief; cut and 

cover I 

Tel. poles Nos. 325-339; including shaft house at pole No. 325; 
culverts Nos. 329, 335 and 339; gaging chamber; 2 minutes from 

relief; cut and cover i 

Tel. pole No. 342 to include culvert No. 353; culverts Nos. 342, 347 

and 353; 10 minutes from relief; cut and cover i 

Tel. poles Nos. 360 to 374; culverts Nos. 360, 368, and 374; 15 

minutes from relief; cut and cover i 

Supervised by i non-com. on bicycle i 



10 



II 



Night Duty {All Fixed Posts) 
Locations shown on Day Post Sheet preceding 

31 Culvert No. 317; manhole No. 318 2 

32 " 324 2 

33 Shaft-house 2 

34 Culvert No. 3 29 2 

35 " 335 2 

36 " 339 - • 2 

37 " 342 2 

38 " 347 2 

39 " 353 2 

40 " 360 2 

41 " 368 2 

42 " 374 • 2 



Supervised by 4 non-coms, on foot 4 



Total 



28 



Outposts 

13 Downtake Rondout pressure tunnel; shaft No. i; in 24 hours 4 

Non-coms i 

Local subsistence. 

14 Drainage Chamber Rondout pressure tunnel, shaft No. 5 4 

Non-coms 2 

Loral subsistence. 

15 Uptake Rondout pressure tunnel; shaft No. 8 4 

Non-coms 2 

Local subsistence. 
3 cooks for above outposts 3 



Total 



RECAPITULATION 



Number of non-coms, and men on guard 53 

With Supply Company — Highland 2 

On duty in camp ...,...,. , , . , . , 9 



64 



APPENDIX III 501 

Men 

On reserve , S 

Commissioned officers 2 

Total aggregate , 71 

SECTOR NORTH-3 

From: Bonticou tunnel. 

To: Downtake chamber Walkill pressure tunnel. 

Commander: First-Lieut. Frank Van Nouhuys. 

Organization: Troop B, ist Cavalry. 

Post Office: New Paltz, N. Y. 

Telephone: New Paltz S9-F-3. 

Headquarters: Camp on side of mountain. 

Day Posts 
Post No. Men 

16 Foot patrol; tel. poles Nos. 596-617; 3 culverts, Nos. 596, 611 and 
617; I manhole, No. 598; 45 minutes from relief; cut and cover. . . . 

17 Foot patrol; tel. poles Nos. 638-650; 3 culverts and i manhole; 20 
minutes from relief; cut and cover 

18 Foot patrol; tel. poles Nos. 658-665; 2 culverts; i manhole and New 
Paltz main; 5 to 15 minutes from relief; cut and cover 

19 Foot patrol; tel. poles Nos. 671-694; 2 culverts; 2 to 5 minutes from 
relief; cut and cover 

Above supervised by i non-com 

20 Foot patrol; tel. poles Nos. 702-716; 3 culverts and i manhole; 
2 to 5 minutes from relief; cut and cover 

21 Foot patrol; tel. poles Nos. 736-750; 3 culverts and 2 manholes; 
15 to 25 minutes from relief; cut and cover 

22 Foot patrol; tel. poles Nos. 750-760; i culvert; 25 minutes from 
relief; cut and cover 

23 Foot patrol; tel. poles Nos. 760-770; i boat-hole; i shaft; i gage; 
I B. W. S. 'phone box; 35 minutes from relief 

Above supervised by i non-com 

Two above groups supervised by i non-com 



Night Posts 

43 Tel. poles Nos. 596-599; i culvert. No. 45, and i manhole 2 

44 Tel. poles Nos. 612-617; 2 culverts, Nos. 47 and 46 2 

45 Tel. poles Nos. 637-650; 3 culverts, Nos. 50, 49 and 48, and I manhole 2 

46 Tel. poles Nos. 654-658; i culvert. No. 51; fixed post 2 

Above supervised by 2 non-coms 2 

47 Tel. poles Nos. 665-671 ; 2 culverts, Nos. 52 and 53, and i manhole 2 

48 Tel. pole No. 680; i culvert, No. 54; fixed post 2 

49 Tel. pole No. 693 ; i culvert, No. 55 ; fixed post 2 

Above supervised by 2 non-coms 2 

Both above groups supervised by i sergeant i 

50 Tel. poles Nos. 702-703; i culvert. No. 56, and i manhole 2 

5 1 Tel. poles Nos. 710-716; 2 culverts, Nos. 57 and 58 2 

52 Tel. poles Nos. 736-738; i culvert, No. 59; 2 manholes 2 



502 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

Night Posts 
Post No. Men 

53 Tel. poles Nos. 742-750; 2 culverts, Nos. 60 and 61 2 

Above supervised by i non-com , 2 

54 Tel. poles Nos. 759-768; i culvert, No. 62 2 

55 Tel. poles Nos. 768-775; i boat-hole; i shaft; i gage; i 'phone box 2 

Above supervised by 2 non-coms 2 

Both above groups supervised by i sergeant i 

36 

Outpost 

56 Guarded at night only, as workmen are employed there during the day 
Drainage chamber — Walkill pressure tunnel. 

I man and i non-com 2 

RECAPITULATION 

Total number non-coms, and men on guard 49 

On duty in camp 9 

Sick, furlough, A. W. L 7 

In reserve for guard 5 

70 

Officers 2 

Inspectors I 

Aggregate 73 

SECTOR NORTH-4 

From: Uptake Walkill pressure tunnel. 

To: Culvert No. 86 — below St. Elmo. 

Commander: First Lieut. F. M. H. Jackson. 

Organization: Detachments of Cos. C, ist Infantry, Co. K, loth Infantry. 

Post Office: Gardiner, N. Y. 

Telephone: Newburgh 7-F-23. 

Headquarters: B. W. S. buildings south of Ireland Corners, Camp Ball. 

Day Posts 
Post No. Men 

24 Uptake Walkill pressure tunnel I 

25 Tel. pole No. 964; culvert No. Gjy and gaging chamber Walkill 
pressure tunnel; patrol i 

26 Tel. pole No. 986; culvert No. 68; fixed post; cut and cover i 

27 Valve house leading to outlet blowofF Walkill pressure tunnel; fixed 
post I 

28 Overflow Walkill pressure tunnel; 3 culverts; patrol i 

29 Outlet; 2 culverts, Nos. 68 and 69; patrol; cut and cover i 

30 Pole No. 1014; first post below blowofF chamber.- i 

31 2 culverts, Nos. 70 and 71; patrol; cut and cover i 

32 Tel. poles Nos. 1053 and 1054; i manhole; i culvert, No. 72; cut and 
cover I 



APPENDIX III 503 

Day Posts 
Post No. Men 

33 2 culverts, Nos. 73 and 74; cut and cover i 

Above supervised by 2 non-coms 2 

34 I culvert No. 78; cut and cover : 

35 2 culverts, Nos. 79 and 80; patrol; cut and cover 

36 Culvert No. 81; patrol; cut and cover 

37 Culvert 82; patrol; cut and cover 

38 Culverts Nos. 83 and 84; cut and cover 

39 Culverts Nos. 85 and 86; i boat-hole; cut and cover 

Above supervised by 2 non-coms 2 



Outposts 

40 Poles Nos. 1099-1100; culvert No. 75 \ ^^^ ^^^ ^^^^^ ^ 
Poles Nos. 1113-1114; culvert No. 76 / 

41 Poles Nos. 113 i-i 132; culvert No. 77; cut and cover l 

Supervised by i non-com i 



Local subsistence. 
In B. W. S. buildings. 

Night Posts {Fixed Posts) 

57 Uptake Walkill pressure tunnel 2 

58 Culvert No. 67 2 

59 Gaging chamber, Walkill pressure tunnel 2 

60 Culvert No. 68 2 

61 Valve-house blowofF 2 

62 Overflow Walkill pressure tunnel 2 

63 3 culverts ^- • • • ^ 

64 Outlet 2 

65 Culvert No. 68 2 

66 Culvert No. 69 2 

67 Culvert No. 70 2 

68 Culvert No. 71 2 

69 I manhole; i culvert. No. 72 2 

70 I culvert. No. 73 2 

71 I culvert, No. 74 2 

Above supervised by 3 non-coms., i sergeant riding a bicycle 3 

72 I culvert, No. 75 2 

73 I culvert, No. 76 2 

74 I culvert. No. 77 2 

Above supervised by 3 non-coms 3 

75 I culvert. No. 78 2 

76 I culvert. No. 79 2 

77 I culvert. No. 80 2 

78 I culvert. No. 81 2 

79 I culvert, No. 82 2 

80 I culvert, No. 83 2 

81 I culvert, No. 84 ,,,,,.,, 2 



S04 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

Night Posts {Fixed Posts) 
Post No. Men 

82 I culvert, No. 85 2 

83 I culvert, No. 86 2 

Above supervised by 2 non-coms 2 

8s 

RECAPITULATION 

Total number of non-coms, and men on guard 85 

On duty in camp 15 

Officers 2 

Aggregate 102 

SECTOR NORTH-s 

From: Culvert No. 87, south of St. Elmo-Newburgh road. 

To: Culvert No. 91. 

Commander: Second-Lieut. Wm. C. Barry, Jr. 

Organization: Troop H, ist Cavalry. 

Post Office: St. Elmo, N. Y., Walkill, R. D. 

Telephone: Walkill, 27 W. 

Headquarters: Camp near St. Elmo, N. Y. 

B. W. S. buildings — none. 

Post No. ^ Men 

42 Culvert No. 87; cut and cover 

43 Culvert No. 88; cut and cover 

44 Culvert No. 89; cut and cover 

45 Culvert No. 90; cut and cover 

46 Culvert No. 91 ; cut and cover 

Above supervised by 2 non-coms 2 

% 7 

Night Duty (All Fixed Posts) 

84 Culvert No. 87 2 

85 Culvert No. 88 2 

86 Culvert No. 89 2 

87 Culvert No. 90 .' . 2 

88 Culvert No. 91 2 

Above supervised by 4 non-coms 4 

14 

RECAPITULATION 

Number of non-coms, and men on guard in 24 hours. : . . 21 

On duty in camp 7 

With Supply Company at Highland 2 

In reserve 6 

36 

One officer i 

Aggregate 37 



APPENDIX III SOS 

SECTOR NORTH-6 



From: Culvert just south of Newburgh trolley crossing. 

To: Cornwall access pressure tunnel. 

Commander: Captain Benedict GifFord. 

Organization: Co. F, loth Infantry. 

Post Office: Vail's Gate, N. Y. 

Telephone No.: Vail's Gate 108-F-3. 

Headquarters: B. W. S. buildings and camp. 



Day Posts 
Post No. Men 

47 Tel. pole No. 1383; i culvert, No. 92; i manhole; 10 minutes from 
relief 

48 Tel. pole No. 1397; i culvert, No. 93; i manhole; 6 minutes from 
relief 

49 Tel. pole No. 1414; i culvert, No. 94; i manhole; turnpike; i minute 
from relief 

50 Tel. pole No. 1427; i culvert, No. 95; i manhole; cut and cover; 
6 minutes from relief 

51 Tel. pole No. 1443; i culvert, No. 96; i manhole; cut and cover; 
10 minutes from relief 

Above supervised by i non-com. Headquarters of above between 

tel. poles Nos. 1414 and 1427 

2 conical tents. 

Subsistence from headquarters. 

52 Tel. pole No. 1502; i culvert, No. loi; i manhole; cut and cover; 42 
minutes from relief 

53 Tel. pole No, 15 10; i culvert. No. 102; i manhole; cut and cover; 
38 minutes from relief 

54 Tel. pole No. 1522; i culvert. No. 103; i manhole; cut and cover; 
30 minutes from relief 

55 Tel. pole No. 1533; i culvert. No. 104; i manhole; cut and cover; 
20 minutes from relief 

56 Tel. pole No. 1544; i culvert, No. 105; i manhole; cut and cover; 
S minutes from rehef 



57 Tel. pole No. 1561; i culvert. No. 106; i manhole; cut and cover; 3 
minutes from relief 

58 Tel. pole No. 1571 ; north siphon chamber, Washington Square siphon; 
10 minutes from relief 

Above supervised by i non-com 

59 Tel. pole No. 161 1 ; south siphon chamber, Washington Square siphon 

60 Tel. pole No. 1663; i culvert No. 107 and manhole; cut and cover; 
20 minutes from relief 

61 Tel. pole No. 1671; shaft downtake chamber Moodna pressure tunnel 

Above supervised by i non-com 



17 



At pole No. 1877, access chamber Moodna pressure tunnel, 
inspection is made once daily by a commissioned officer. 



So6 H-A-L-TT ! — WHA-ZAA ? 

Night Duty 
Post No. Men 

89 Culvert No. 92 and manhole 2 

90 " 93 " I 

91 Additional night patrol at this point between poles Nos. 1397 and 1414. i 

92 Culvert No. 92 and manhole 2 

93 . " 95 " . 2 

94 Additional patrol at this point between poles Nos. 1427 and 1443.. . . i 

95 Culvert No. 96 and manhole 2 

Above supervised by 3 non-coms 3 

Culverts Nos. 97, 98, 99 and 100 are sluiceways and adjacent culverts 
are not vulnerable or requiring attention from the guard. 

96 Culvert No. loi and manhole 2 

97 Additional night patrol at this point I 

98 Culvert No. 102 and manhole 2 

99 . " 103 " 2 

100 " 104 ** 2 

loi " 105 •• 2 

102 ** 106 " 2 

103 Additional night patrol at this point i 

Above supervised by 2 non-coms 2 

104 North siphon chamber 4 

105 South siphon chamber 4 

106 Culvert No. 107 and manhole 2 

107 Shaft — downtake chamber 4 

Above supervised by 3 non-coms 3 

48 

RECAPITULATION 

Number of non-coms, and men on guard 65 

On duty in camp 14 

In hospital 3 

In reserve 33 

112 

Officers 3 

Aggregate 115 



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